The Student Government Association (SGA) just held its Executive Elections. The student body voted on April 16 for the following positions: President, Executive Vice President (EVP), Vice President of Student Life (SL), Vice President of Academic Affairs (AA), Vice President of Research Affairs (RA), Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and Vice President of Engagement. Positions that were not run this year after policy changes that have occurred are the Finance Board Chair and Vice President of Residence Life. The Finance Board Chair position was absorbed into the responsibilities of the President after a legislative change that occurred in the Fall. The Vice President of Residence Life had its responsibilities absorbed into the Vice President of Student Life in the last year, as well; the Residence Hall Association remains an organization on campus. This year’s election had 678 voters, which is just under double the participation from last year, and about 7.5% of the student population.
The results are as follows:
President: Yailine Cano (Incumbent)
Executive Vice President: Erick Armando Silva Jr. (Incumbent)
Vice President of Student Life: Syed Qadri
Vice President of Academic Affairs: Delwin Manjali
Vice President of Research Affairs: Tengis Munkhbat
Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Jessie Xie
Vice President of Engagement: Harold Ho
While some changes have occurred to the Vice-Presidential positions, the key spots of the President and EVP have remained unchanged. The EVP ran unopposed in this year’s race but still had a strong win with 73.6% of the vote over the abstention option. Throughout election time, the two races that stood out to students were the Presidential position and the Vice President of DEI. The President gained her second term after winning against opposition candidate Fatimah Amer by 7.7%. The VP of DEI position was an extremely tight result with a winning difference of 1 vote. Jessie Xie won the VP of DEI position over incumbent Ashanti Bunton after a highly contested race between the two. Additionally, Delwin Majali won his race for VPAA over his predecessor, Ishaan Goel (Note: Ishaan Goel was officially running, but we spotted no campaign for Goel throughout the election).
For the most part, there is a continuation of the current leadership in SGA, and students were overwhelmingly in favor of keeping or promoting these next leaders into their positions. This continuation in leadership not only signals a stability that has been with SGA over the last year, but also a desire to keep the current agenda that SGA has pushed for, to keep on going. SGA’s President has pushed for facility improvements in key locations around campus, changes to finance board legislation, and an effort to have an SGA that can retain its senators through the breaks. All in all, this was an exciting election to watch. I would like to thank the Executive Elections Committee for bringing TechNews back into the Executive Election Forums/Debates. We look forward to seeing the Senate results in the Fall!