ROXANA ASTEMBORKI/Art & Design Editor
FLORA THEDEN
News Assistant
As the semester comes to a close, Student Government Association is looking for new faces to represent Pepperdine in the 2008-2009 academic year. Both current SGA members and students new to the organization have been campaigning for student body and class positions.
It is particularly important to vote this term, as three proposed amendments will be on the ballots. Voting began Wednesday at 8 a.m. and will continue through Friday at 8 a.m.
Juniors Britney Torres and Hunter Stanfield are running for SGA President.
Both Torres and Stanfield participated in a debate mediated by SGA President Andy Canales, on Tuesday in the Caf.
During the debate, Torres and Stanfield stated their platforms, answered questions from Canales and took questions from the audience.
Stanfield began the debate by speaking about his recent decision to run for president.
“I never considered running for SGA until three weeks ago when I was approached by people who thought my wisdom and involvement on campus would qualify me for this position,” he said.
He then proposed a three-point plan during the debate to help cut tuition costs. The first point is to insure the increase of need-based financial aid and to place a student representative on the scholarship board. Second, there should be regular comprehensive fee projections for up to 10 years. Finally, Stanfield proposed that, if elected, he said he will challenge the administration to justify the financial burden of tuition increases to the students, other than simply sending out a letter.
Torres, his opponent, spent most of the debate talking about her experience in SGA and her plans for next year.
“I want to get my enthusiasm across to the student body,” Torres said. “I have a folder full of ideas I’ve gotten from students and, if I am elected, I would love to make it mandatory to have Town Hall or dorm storm.”
The candidates are each running with three other students who will comprise their Executive Board, if elected.
Torres is running with Eli Sayegh as her Executive Vice President. Sayegh has served as freshman senator and sophomore class president. Sophomore Rae Cascio, who is currently an SGA senator, is running alongside Torres for vice president of administration and has worked with many projects during her time in SGA, including SGA’s “Super Tuesday Party,” which she implemented. Junior Class President Sara Clark will run as Torres’ vice president of finance.
Ashley Burt is running for executive vice president, John Ceglia is running for vice president of administration and Courtney Boucher is running for vice president of finance, all alongside Stanfield.
Burt and Ceglia are active senators in SGA and are running on the platform of improving the communication between the student body and the elected representatives. Although she has never served on SGA, Boucher, the final member of Stanfield’s team, said she feels her experience in other organizations, such as Pi Beta Phi, will serve as adequate experience.
On the student body president ballot, students will be asked to vote on three constitutional amendments. The first amendment is to change the titles of SGA secretary and treasurer. The amendments propose the term secretary be changed to vice president of administration and treasurer be changed to vice president of finance.
“It is simply a technicality that will make the titles sound more professional,” said Jonathan Unger, Public Relations Director for SGA.
Another amendment proposes the size of SGA be reduced from 28 senators to 12 senators. There are 14 housing senators the members of SGA feel are unnecessary.
“In the last four years, as many as eight Senator positions weren’t filled during elections,” said Austin Manes, SGA vice president of administration, who authored the resolutions. “We are trying to clean up the SGA constitution. Everyone should know that we are trying to make SGA more effective.”
SGA has already approved these amendments, but they need to be approved by the student body to officially become a part of the constitution.
“We’re cutting down SGA because it hasn’t been competitive, so we want to make SGA more competitive to be a more prestigious body,” Canales said.
The third amendment to the constitution will eliminate a special election for new senators who are elected to fill a vacated position.
The current constitution requires each new person appointed by SGA from a vacated position to run in a formal election two weeks after they are appointed to become an official member of SGA.
“It is unrealistic to have an individual election for each open SGA position,” Manes said.
Class president candidates will also be on the ballot. Juniors Steven Arnold, Blake Kewish, Jenn Young, Lauren Meagher and Bethany Estrada are all vying for the position of senior class president.
Arnold claims to focus less on big screen TVs, less on T-shirt drama and more on protecting and serving our student body. Kewish said he will work to introduce a lecture series that will offer guidance for seniors who are about to confront the challenges of post-college life. However, neither Arnold nor Kewish has experience on SGA. The rest of the candidates for senior class president have served on SGA as senators .
Sophomores Blake Franks, Adriene Fore and Katrina Chersicla are running for junior class president. All three candidates have had previous experience on SGA. CJ Bakke and Candy Hwang are the sophomore class president candidates.
Hwang said she plans on facilitating changes through her commitment to the class.
Canales said he will e-mail students at the beginning of April with the results of the elections.
03-27-2008