The Longwood University Student Government Association (SGA) will experience a new era of leadership during the 2013-2014 academic year. The student body had the chance to elect the 2013-2014 Senate from Wednesday, April 10 to Friday, April 12 via CollegiateLink.
Current Executive Senator Haley Vest and Treasurer Queen Burrell both ran for the position of president; Vest was ultimately elected to the position.
The other individuals elected to the Executive Board include Steven Sommer as vice president, Kendall Lofton as secretary, Alex Julian as treasurer and Paige Rollins as historian. All of these individuals ran unopposed for their positions.
While awaiting the election results, Vest, a junior biology major with a health/biomedical concentration, said she was “very nervous leading up to it. I had no idea whatsoever which way it was going to go.”
As one of her first orders of business, Vest said she plans to implement a student club and organization officer boot camp at the start of the upcoming academic year. She said this boot camp is ideal for groups that “really want to improve how they run or maybe new clubs and organizations that are struggling, so that way their officers can really learn how to utilize all the resources that Longwood has.”
Overall, Vest would like to “work toward club and organization development.” She plans to find ways to inform organizations on how to obtain funding and utilize CollegiateLink in the most efficient manner possible.
“I really want to make sure organizations and clubs have every opportunity that they can to succeed,” Vest added. Regarding qualities exhibited by current SGA President Donald Knight, Vest said she would like to maintain Knight’s strong relationship with the university administration. She said she looks forward to working closely with President- Elect W. Taylor Reveley and other members of the university administration.
A huge part of Vest’s platform is to increase the overall visibility of the SGA. This also stems from the fact that, as previously mentioned, all Executive Board candidates with the exception of Vest and Burrell ran unopposed.
Vest hopes students will see more of the SGA on campus, getting the word out and encouraging more students to attend meetings.
“We’ll hopefully push more students into Senate roles, get them excited about SGA and then we’ll also move more senators into higher level roles,” Vest said.
Vest added that it would be “great to see some more competition for next year.”
As for the representatives on Senate who represent particular interest groups or colleges, Vest would like to see weekly reports on their progress “so we know what’s going on all around campus, not just necessarily when issues come up.”
Vice President-Elect Sommer agreed with Vest about the issue of SGA visibility.
“I definitely want to do the most I can to try to help the Senate foster a discussion with regular students and try to get their views out there,” Sommer said.
Sommer also plans to focus on delegating the appropriate committee roles to senators in order to properly accommodate their skills. He felt current Vice President Brian Reid “did a fantastic job of really placing students in positions that they needed to be in to be successful, and I felt like our committees ran relatively smoothly this year.”
As a member of the SGA for two years, Sommer said he is “really excited because I’ve seen how this Senate has worked, and I’ve seen how this [executive] board has worked, and I’ve seen some things I’ve loved about this [executive] board, I’ve seen some things that I wasn’t always 100 percent with, and I’ve seen why some decisions had to be made.”
Sommer added, “I’m just really excited to see where everyone lies and what all we can accomplish in the next year, knowing all that base knowledge that we’ve had for a while now.”
The elected senators for the 2013-2014 academic year are Adam Fletcher, Natalie Joseph, Kimberly Lyon, Allison Dougherty, Jessica Darst, Haley Socha, O’Neishea Edmonds, Wil Miles, Caroline Highland, Shana Hoffman, Joey Siverd, Ronnie Brown, Victoria Hosey and Carson Reeher.
Elected class officers include Logan Miller as senior class president, Kasey Haddock as senior class vice president, Queen Burrell as senior class secretary, Leighan Worden as senior class treasurer, Alyssa Cardwell as junior class president, Savannah Penatzer as junior class vice president and Rachael Knick as junior class secretary.
The newly elected Conduct Board justices are Logan Miller, Queen Burrell, Alex Horansky, Martha Kinkel, Carly Westbrook, Lauren Mancuso, Valerie Olijar, Kelli Bannon, Hailey Voorhees, Amanda Miller, Kaitlyn Cumber, Brittany Smith, Alyssa Cardwell, Lindsey McGibbon, Stuart Paykel, Joseph Sanford, Tyler Harper, Mary Lockwood, Stephanie Adams, Katherine Thiel, Alison Meier, Blake Shaw, Lindsay Cox , Lindsay Wilmoth, Samantha Hedger, Kara Lenhar, Osten Morris, Haley Talmake, Taylor Woody and Rachel Knick. Internally, the board elected Darnell Royster as chairman
The Honor Board elects are Alexis Drewer, Alexandra Elliot, Ashley Patrick, Taylor Magda, Krista Ellis and Alexandra Labons. The 2013-2014 chairman will be Jordan McWilliams.
Next Wednesday, April 24 has been set as a tentative inauguration date for the 2013- 2014 Senate, symbolizing the transition from the current Senate to the upcoming SGA members.
