By Anthony Farajallah
With Student Government Association elections on Wednesday, the only executive ticket, Momentum, spoke to a small crowd in the Chapel about their motivations, aspirations, and platform for their upcoming term. The ticket includes President Johnelle Simpson, Vice President Houston Gaines, and Treasurer Darby Miller. Elections will be open online at www.involve.uga.edu from 8 a.m. on Wednesday March 25 until 5 p.m. on Thursday March 26.
Johnelle Simpson served as a Senator in SGA for the Terry School of Business. He met Houston during his term. They had similar visions for campus, and Darby was their first pick for a third member of the ticket. They spoke of each bringing a different experience to the ticket.
As Treasurer, Darby would be in charge of everything financial, whether about SGA’s own budget or for other student organizations. She emphasized the importance of transparency in the process of acquiring and receiving funding. When asked what she would cut first from the SGA budget, she stressed improving efficiency and accountable spending as opposed to cutting any funds.
Houston’s main responsibility as Vice President is to be in charge of the Senate of SGA. His current experience as Director of Government Relations within the SGA Cabinet has made him realize the gravity of fostering more interconnectivity with local governments, to help drive UGA initiatives further.
Johnelle’s role as President is to be the primary voice for the student body and to make sure SGA is functioning properly. He admitted being President is a big ego booster, but that he wouldn’t let the title get to him, and would strive to command strategically and proactively.
Momentum believes the past administration has done a great job giving the students tangible progress, but they also think their administrative functions need change. When fleshing out their platform, the three focused on creating goals that could be attained within their year of service. The platform contains four main points:
- Creating and Improving Student Services
Night time safety was stressed as a service many students are demanding when they feel particularly unsafe getting around campus. An escort program, which would provide safe transport for students from different areas of campus, began last week, and the three highlighted how important it was for students to utilize these services to create demand for any possible expansions. Possibly the most exciting news to come out of this event was the hinting of a possible new meal plan option that students have been demanding for many years. The current unlimited meal plan option is lackluster to many non-freshman who do not spend their entire day on campus.
- Strengthen SGA’s role as Student’s Voice
Many students on campus feel apathetic toward SGA’s role within the student body. Momentum hopes to connect with the student population to keep them better informed on SGA’s actions.
- Inclusive Postsecondary Education (IPSE)
A program which aims to give students with special needs the opportunity to attend and earn a degree from UGA. Darby emphasized the importance of giving special needs children a quintessential college experience as well. SGA has already passed legislation supporting this initiative, and it is now time to get a college within UGA to sponsor this initiative.
- Connecting Students to Resources
UGA offers its students many resources that sometimes are not utilized. Momentum hopes to better educate the student body of the opportunities and resources that are available to them, such as mental health resources.
The lack of competition in this year’s executive race may be attributed to the lack of a connection between SGA’ and the general student body. But, Darby assured that, despite the lack of competition, Momentum still has a flame underneath them to keep SGA’s great work going. Johnelle commented on SGA’s plans to be more present throughout the year at various University events, and on keeping the student body more up to date with initiatives and their work.
Momentum also spoke on two more sensitive issues: UGA’ diversity and undocumented students.
Despite UGA’s visible lack of diversity (70 percent white), Johnelle believes UGA “does a great job of plugging those minority students into campus life.” The best way to improve diversity, he says, is to encourage existing minority students to become active participants on campus to create a productive dialogue. Houston emphasized SGA’s recent actions to create Open Dialogue sessions to discuss sensitive issues of race relations, minorities on campus, and a diversity of opinion in general.
A ban passed by the Board of Regents in October 2010 prohibits undocumented students in Georgia from attending the state’s most selective research universities. This issue has been hotly contested amongst the student body. Many hope to retract this decision and have been working tirelessly to give undocumented immigrants the opportunity to expand their education. Momentum believes they don’t have a say in this issue, claiming they are only concerned with students that are already on campus.
In closing, Momentum emphasized their passion as candidates. They hope to put student back in student government by actively working towards achieving their platform’s four goals.
Vote online at www.involve.uga.edu from 8 a.m. on Wednesday March 25 until 5 p.m. on Thursday March 26.
