Meet Your BU Student Senate President, Al Cuizon, Jr.

September 12, 2025

Bradley was the first college Al Cuizon, Jr. was ever exposed to, having attended St. Mark’s School just down the road. All the same, when he graduated high school, his college search led him to start his journey at ICC. Even though he had dreams of attending an Ivy League school, the light of Bradley shone bright in his mind.

“I’m a grassroots Peorian,” he explained. “My family’s here. My entire history is here. All my connections and all the things I’ve built up to this point have been in Peoria.”

The choice to apply to Bradley, in the end, was an easy one. Adapting to his new life on a dime? Not so much. With personal challenges damaging his self confidence, Cuizon, Jr. was rife with self-doubt. But, like so many Bradley students before him, he stayed the course, eventually finding community through leadership and service through the power of personal resilience. 

All the same, the call to lead was not one easily answered.

“I actually wasn’t thinking about running for student body president,” Cuizon, Jr. recalled. “I met with a good friend of mine who was under the impression we were going to run as competitors. We had a discussion and just decided to run together. We both agreed that I would run as president and he’d run as the director of admin.”

Now, Al and his team are looking to unify the student voice by bringing leaders from across disciplines and interests together. They passed a bill during the summer automatically bringing all student organization presidents into student government if they meet a certain membership threshold.

“They are the student leaders, not just us,” Cuizon, Jr. explained. “We represent them when it comes to conversations with the administration, but when it comes to the full cultivation of the quality of life here and the student experience as a whole, these are our point people.”

Cuizon, Jr. hopes his presidential legacy is one of expansiveness.

“We need to inspire students to take advantage of their classes without letting their major become their sole personality. I’m a political science major, but I have interests in music, I have interests in faith, I have interests in poetry. We as human beings have so many other things that we are interested in.”For Bradley students, expanding across disciplines is the name of the game, with many students choosing multiple majors and/or minors to help round out their experience. Cuizon, Jr. hopes that by tapping into these expansive interests, students will be able to make the most of their Bradley experience.

“The biggest piece of advice I would give to any student coming after me is to always lean on mentors as your pillars toward success here at Bradley–professors, and peers.”

–Jenevieve Rowley-Davis