Student Community Government President Dante DiGregorio discusses his four years at RIC

Tim Yean

Sports Editor

Dante DiGregorio on Anchor TV Interviews (screenshot via Anchor TV)

This article follows up the Anchor TV Interviews episode featuring Student Community Government President, Dante DiGregorio. Watch here!

For a Student Community Government [SCG] President, Dante DiGregorio started off as a pretty introverted person first entering Rhode Island College.

“My first two years of college, I wasn’t really involved in anything, I had very few friends, my GPA was really bad,” DiGregorio told Anchor TV Interviews. “I was just not at my full potential yet.”

For the graduating senior, however, DiGregorio has unleashed his potential and will walk the graduation stage at the Amica Mutual Pavilion as the leading voice and decision-maker for over six thousand of Rhode Island College’s students. 

Over his one-year term as SCG President, DiGregorio has seen numerous changes come across campus. Student life, DiGregorio says, has sharply grown in participation, with the new-student orientation team and SCG seeing their largest increases in membership since before campus went remote in response to COVID-19. Various student clubs are holding a plethora of events for campus to be involved in.

RIC has seen visual changes under DiGregorio’s presidency. The Donovan Dining center has introduced lounge and diner-like seating on the main floor to improve the eating area’s appearance as a place for students to hang out and study, which DiGregorio called “a lot of quality-of-life updates.”

Looking back in his first two years at the school, DeGregorio referred to campus life as “a lot quieter” and “desolate at times,” with a lack of weekend events and his schedule as a commuter contributing to the unremarkable time he had on the campus. “That was what all my life was for a while.”

 His schedule has shifted dramatically after those freshman and sophomore years. From 10-12 am on an often basis, DiGregorio is on campus, whether it be performing his duties, going to campus events or hanging out with friends. 

“I’m basically a resident, but in the SCG office,” DiGregorio joked.

The constant on-campus lifestyle also means that, as president, he’s been able to guide important student changes himself. In his State of the Student Body Address back in October 2025, DiGregorio outlined “The Great Promise,” which set a list of goals and promises he aimed to accomplish during his administration that involved constant communication with campus administration and participation from SCG Parliament members.

“There was an expectation I had for student government,” DiGregorio said. “It didn’t meet the expectations I had. It was very relaxed, people didn’t really care very much.”

A good number of DiGregorio’s plans have been successfully put in place, with the inclusion of textbooks being covered under tuition being the final hurdle to clear, which he says is likely to happen with the campus’s renewal of its contract with Barnes & Noble.

The biggest initiative established is the opening of SCG executive council elections to the student body. DiGregorio introduced the sweeping idea to the previous year’s executive council, and was met with the “utmost resistance.”

“I had to fight tooth and nail to convince the other e-board members that this was the right direction to take,” DiGregorio said.  “That was just the first step. The second step was bringing that to Parliament.”

Parliament was shocked by the announcement at his previously mentioned student body address, but right after, policy was written up and heavily remodeled in various drafts in conjunction with SCG Vice President Tess Sullivan. Months later, the final policy was finished up with deliberation, concluding with a passage of the opening of SCG elections.

The results for the inaugural SCG Executive Council election, with Malcolm Mann being elected as the next president of the student government. DiGregorio has shown high praise for the new president-elect and the overall executive council, saying that Mann “reminds me of me.”

DiGregorio gave Mann one tip in his interview: to ensure that he maintains and connects with campus administration a healthy working relationship and to be honest with them as he shuffles through the top role.

“Make sure that they know how you feel, because they will actually work with you.”