SGA Presidency and Senate Confirmed for 2019-2020
The university’s annual Student Government Association elections have been taking place on campus over the past few weeks, and the spring 2019 results are officially in.
Applications for the positions of president and vice president as well as senators for the 2019-2020 academic year opened Feb. 18 and closed March 2, a few days prior to campaign week, which began March 11 and lasted until the 15. Once applications were in, students on campus voted between March 17 and 22.
With 15 final candidates being represented on the ballot, there was only one presidential and vice-presidential ticket along with 13 senatorial candidates for students to consider.
The candidates had a week to campaign and share their key points of concern with the university community. SGA held a candidate open-forum to get the university’s community better acquainted with each candidate and their platform.
Cotrayia Hardison and Thomas Crowe-Allbritton won the presidential and vice-presidential race with their campaign the “BRIDGE.”
“The BRIDGE campaign emphasizes the idea of the Student Government Association as the platform in which students can directly express their thoughts to administration and the community. SGA should act as a bridge in order to create avenues that allows students to be the agents of change that they seek. By bridging the gap between students and SGA, administration and the community, students can better understand how they can enact change both on and off campus,” read the graphic promoting Crowe-Allbritton and Hardison’s campaign.
The 12 new senators are as follows according to the number of votes received (highest to lowest): KaylaVera McBride, Zyreke Ward, Simone Spencer, Lillian Marino, Samantha Samuels, Stephanie Balacco, Anthony Carter, Jamal Bennett, Tineshalee Rosado, Tyler Harris, Emily Thompson and Katrina Harrison.
Much like the presidential candidates’ campaign, many of the senatorial candidates had a plan to bring the student population and the university administration closer together, ultimately getting students more involved in decision making processes and student organizations in general.
Tyler Harris believes student involvement will depend upon how SGA interacts with the university population through tabling in the UC as well as more politically-inclined outreach such as voter registration.
“The lack of initiative that is on this campus is baffling, we need to create more initiative for people to come out to the events on campus like this or like tabling events,” Jamal Bennett said at the open-forum.
While some candidates focused on student engagement, others dialed in on the status of safety around UNC Pembroke’s campus.
“I would like to see UNCP’s campus become more safe and secure,” KaylaVera McBride said in her mission statement. “I think we really need to begin to promote the LiveSafe app and advocate for more safety polls.”
You can read more about each of the candidates and their mission for the university in the SGA Candidate Handbook which can be found in your university email.
Training for the new elects will begin April 6.
The SGA encourages any students who are interested in running next year, or being a part of the organization, to come to their open-meetings that are held weekly on Wednesdays at 5:15 p.m. in Dial 225.
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