Those of you who have been approached by students with petitions in hand asking for your signature or who voted online probably know that UVM’s Student Government Association Senate elected five freshmen members last Thursday.
The five new members, elected from a group of 15 students and adamant about issues ranging from financial transparency to new varsity sports teams, will each be placed on one of seven committees within SGA: Finance, Committee on Legislative Action (a group that handles community relations with Burlington), Student Action, Public Relations, Activities, Clubs or Committee on Diversity, Equity and Environmental Ethics (a group for social justice and diversity).
They will be placed according primarily to each group’s need and partially on the new members’ preferences.
SGA is in charge of dealing with student issues around campus, often via the students themselves. Issues include club recognition, diversity on campus and sustainability. All members then discuss major issues and send them off as a bill to the administrators.
“We want to be the voice for the student body,” Elections Chair and Public Relations group member Seth Corthell said. “Every senator has an equal voice.”
Freshmen students will work with the older members of SGA to try to resolve the issues that fall under their groups’ jurisdiction, while working with other groups to try to solve the problems presented to them.
“I’m pumped that first-years will have some representation,” freshmen Jessie-Ruth Corkins said. Corkins said that she spent a lot of time looking over the candidate profiles before choosing the five she wanted.
There are four elections for the SGA every year: the first-year elections, mid-term elections, presidential elections and the end-of-year elections, in which every member must run to remain in the senate.
This means every senator needs to do his or her part because there is no guarantee that they will be back next year, and, if they do return, it’s likely that they will be placed in different groups than they were in the previous year.
“I’ve served in different groups since I joined the SGA,” Corthell said. “It’s a great way to learn.”
