BRITNEY MALONEY
News Assistant
Kevin Mills was named president of SGA for the 2006-2007 school year after two weeks of elections.
Mills ran against Brendan Groves and Joanna Mason, and faced a run-off with Mason after the initial election. He was informed of his win March 30.
“I was overjoyed when I first heard the news,” Mills said, “and was overwhelmed — in a good way — by how many people congratulated me on my election win.”
Elections began two weeks ago, and last week Pepperdine students voted again in a runoff between Mason and Mills.
“Brendan and Joanna are the most kind and gracious opponents anyone could run against,” Mills said.
Though his decision to run for SGA president was only decided a few weeks before the election, Mills said he had been thinking about running since his freshman year.
“I was a freshman senator under SGA President Jason Palmer, and I really respected him both as a person and as a gifted leader for our school,” Mills said. “I hoped that one day perhaps I would be able to serve the school in that same way.”
He said that as time passed, he took greater notice of the direction he believed Pepperdine should go and what kind of leader it would take to make those changes happen.
For that reason, he said he has big plans for next year’s school year.
“As SGA president I am going to make next year stand out as a year in which Pepperdine reaches a higher level of excellence in our community and engagement with the world,” he said.
Mills said he plans on expanding Pepperdine’s record of bringing big-name bands to Pepperdine, as well as working with the Programming Board, ICC and the Greek system to host bigger and better events on campus.
“In the area of academics, I will create a chair position within SGA to provide students with greater voice in academic matters such as GE requirements, course offerings and tenure decisions,” Mills said.
He also said he will voice the concerns of students over large tuition hikes without greater explanation and advocate that scholarship awards automatically be increased by the same percentage as tuition increases.
In addition, Mills said he will actively work to reform Convo.
“I want Convo to be an experience that adds community and builds faith to our school, rather than be one more hoop for students to jump through,” he said.
Some of Mill’s possible ideas for reform are an increased focus on having small group or clubs run Convo programs and a decreasing requirement for Convos based on year in school.
Mills, a Wenatchee, Wash. native, has been extremely involved in Pepperdine and SGA in the past three years. His involvement includes serving as freshman and junior SGA senator, RA in Heidelberg, president of Golden Key Honor Society, president of Students for the Defense of Democracy, vice-president of Membership of Rotaract, Pepperdine Ambassador Council Community liaison, an ICC representative, and he sits on the advisory board for the First Books non-profit organization in the Volunteer Center.
“These numerous experiences have allowed me to be introduced to a diverse perspective on the issues facing Pepperdine students,” Mills said, “and placed me in a position in which I can work to coordinate efforts through my connections with many student groups.”
Other Pepperdine students elected to SGA’s executive board are juniors Kristen Compean, Executive Vice President, Ryan Harvey, Vice President of Administration and Ryan Duby, Vice President of Finance. Both Compean and Harvey ran their campaigns with Mills.
“I am confident that through Kevin’s leadership SGA will be run efficiently and that the changes he makes will make Pepperdine a better place for all of us,” Daniel Timko, freshman senator said.
Associate Dean Rick Marrs visited SGA to present ideas about potential schedule changes for next year on March 22. Marrs explained a possible schedule alteration would be to change classes to Monday/Wednesday/Friday and Tuesday/Thursday.
However, the changes are far from being placed into effect.
“I don’t see this happening in the next year,” Marrs said. “We have already built the fall schedule.”
Marrs explained that a positive element of the schedule change would be that registration would be much easier.
“Right now we are having a terrible time starting another section when a class is full,” Marrs said. “Our hope is that this new schedule would help solve that problem.”
Other new business at the March 22 meeting included passing a resolution that would put newspaper distribution boxes around campus.
Freshman Richard Nye helped present the resolution to SGA.
“I think that having newspapers around campus would really benefit the campus and Pepperdine students,” Nye said.
At yesterday’s meeting SGA planned to vote on six resolutions, but did not have enough members present to have quorum.
04-06-2006