Mark GarlitThis year, the Student Government Association dedicated its’ time to test out a new electoral process for its candidates. Students were able to vote for their new representatives, online, on the Cabrini One portal.
The elections covered the week of March 23 – March 25, which gave students the opportunity to vote on several different days. The votes were tallied up on Friday evening, March 26, and the results showed that only 77 students participated.
“I think that SGA could have done a better job marketing who they are and what they are and what they provide for the students and with the elections, overall,” Jason Bozzone, director of student activities, said.
Bozzone, who acts as the adviser for SGA, has made it clear that the organization is student-run and that he is only there to moderate. He thinks that there should be more action taken among the students on campus and that SGA should be a bigger voice for all of their commuter and resident peers.
However, newly elected president for the 2004 – 2005 academic school year, junior Sarah Madden said that SGA did all that they could to promote the elections. They put up posters, had car tags and table tents. In addition, they went door-to-door explaining what they were doing and gave out pens, t-shirts and key chains. “I actually think that the main reason why many couldn’t vote was because after 60 days of not using your user domain, it cancels it out. Students didn’t have the time to go down to ITR to get their user names and vote,” Madden said.
The elections might have also been affected because some students do not even know what SGA does or what activities they plan. “I think I might know what they represent if I sat in one of their meetings or talked to one of the people in charge, but I’ve never done that,” sophomore Jen Scholl, said.
With her new position, Madden plans to change that as much as possible. “My personal goals for the new year are to work together with the student body and faculty in finding out what is needed on campus. I want to make sure that the campus realizes how important their voice truly can be.”
SGA came across a few bumps along the year and have decided that some changes needed to be made to their constitution to make it more workable for the Cabrini campus. “I think they find that some things work, and some things don’t work,” Bozzone said.The current president of SGA for this academic school year, senior Jesse Gluckman felt that he lacked the support of administration when it came to planning activities and in working for the student body. “It’s very hard to get things done at Cabrini. I think that no student leader gets the support they need from administration. We are students first and that needs to be understood,” Gluckman said. However, he sees that SGA will prosper next year and hopes that the students, faculty and staff will support the organization so that it may grow and be the voice that the student body wants to hear.
Posted to the Web By:Mark Garlit
