The first official SGA elections under the new constitution are underway, and voting is open to students until Friday.
The SGA’s rules of engagement and elections were suspended in March. One month later JP Neri was voted into office alongside Vice President Margaret-Ann Littauer with a focus on drafting a new constitution.
The constitution was ratified May 2, and the SGA started off the year with several welcome week events including handing out donuts on Sanford Mall and attending Club Expo Neri said.
This election has seen a great increase in communication between the student body, student organizations, faculty and staff, and the student government, Neri said.
“Overall it’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience,” Neri said. “Campus Activities has been absolutely fantastic in working with us, and Engage and all those people that actually make the election — behind the scenes stuff — happen.”
This election is being held for specific positions that were not filled in the spring semester election, according to the SGA. Student candidates are running for positions as representatives for second, third and fourth class years and overall representatives.
Students can vote for representatives of their class year and overall representatives through the Engage website.
Walker Floyd, a junior history major, said he wanted to run for third-year representative because he was looking to meet people who shared his interest in advocacy and “had a real interest in working with other people.”
Floyd said some of his goals as a representative would be to improve the relationship between professors and students and “galvanize, like, not political necessarily, but kind of social justice activities on campus.”
Junior political science major Nicole Tran said this is her first year on campus and her fresh perspective of campus and the Town of Boone may help her as an overall representative.
“My interactions on campus haven’t been, like, super big but that’s why I wanted to run for representative, was just to, like, build a better community for myself but also, like, at App,” Tran said.
Another reason Tran decided to run was because she wants to work alongside Diversity and Inclusion.
“I just find it super important that we make sure everyone feels safe throughout the school year,” Tran said.
As a first-gen Asian student, Tran said, she wants to provide representation for students who can identify with her.
Alex Wojnicki, a junior political science major, is also running for one of the positions as overall representative. He said he was a member of the SGA his freshman year but not his sophomore year.
Upon returning to the SGA, Wojnicki said he already sees many changes to the association, including a $25 campaign spending limit.
A few major changes have also been made to the structure of the SGA this semester, including changing the name of the senate to the assembly and electing representatives rather than senators, Neri said.
“I think there’s just a lot of power in the name, being called a representative instead of a senator,” Neri said. “I think our goal is to ground the SGA in what it actually is, which is an influential body that is able to have conversations and have a seat at the table.”
Within the assembly, there are now six positions for student organization representatives that are open to any organization that would like to join Neri said.
Another major change to the organization, Neri said, is the unification of the former presidential cabinet and the senate committee directors to make the newly formed leadership team.
“Vote, vote, vote,” Neri said. “It is so much easier when the student government association can go and can say, ‘These are the people that have been elected by their peers and that they are actually representing their peers.’”
