SGA discusses election cycle and campus events

Maggie Haddock
Assistant news editor
[email protected]
The Student Government Association held their final meeting before spring break on March 8 to discuss their upcoming election and the recent success of SGA-hosted events, as well as their plans for future events.
“Liz (Torres) and I are currently in the thick of recruiting candidates.” said Charlie White, SGA president.
SGA will meet with qualified candidates after their applications have been reviewed. Campaign week starts March 27 and elections will run from March 30 to March 31.
“After the applications are done being accepted, we will have a period of elections rules meetings with the candidates who have filed and are eligible,” White said.
Highsmith Student Union, formerly SAIL, works with Omicron Delta Kappa to recruit students of junior and senior status based on a faculty or staff member’s recommendations. Recruitment will continue through March.
“There is a new national leadership honors society being formed on campus through Highsmith Student Union and Omicron Delta Kappa,” White said.
Recommendations will be based off of the student’s grade point average, campus involvement, scholarly accomplishments or athletics, according to documents from Highsmith Student Union.
Following last month’s successful Food Truck Friday, dining services will bring another food truck to campus at the end of March, according to Anja Mayr, senior senator and chair of the Student Affairs Committee.
“Food Truck Friday is happening on the 31st. Blue Smoke food truck will be there and they will be there from 11:30 to 1:30 p.m.,” Mayr said.
Despite efforts made by SGA, dining services will not allow student input on which food trucks come to campus, Mayr said.
“I really tried to get Brooke (Casteel) to let us get student input and it was a hard, ‘No.’ So she will be determining the food trucks,” Mayr said.
Previous SGA-hosted events and their success were discussed. SGA recently hosted a series of events to engage the campus community while discussing important issues on campus.
“The campus police forum — shout out to all the people that helped put these together — ASG Mental Health Week, Classroom Consciousness,” White said.
The most recent event, the Classroom Consciousness panel, resulted in being very successful, White noted.
“I heard so many amazing things from all the administrators and faculty members that I talked to that have gone to that, so sincerely, Academic Affairs Committee, thank you for putting that together,” White said.
“We had our Classroom Consciousness event on Monday discussing how to create affirming academic space for people of all gender identities and sexualities and we had a really, really good panel of individuals from campus with varying backgrounds and experiences,” said Lauren Bulla, sophomore senator and chair of the academic affairs committee.
Aside from the success of the panel, Bulla noted ways to improve related events in the future.
“My hope is that, in the future, we would be able to continue, not necessarily through Academic Affairs but maybe through SGA as a whole or something like that, to push the initiative to having these conversations in a panel-type setting where you open it up to students who have questions and answers,” Bulla said.