A group of aspiring Elon University student government representatives convened Monday, Feb. 17 in McEwen to deliver speeches in favor of their canidacies, followed by a spirited debate between the two executive president hopefuls.
Juniors Joe Incorvia and Jessica Petrillo, both self-described “fast friends,” will split the voting for executive president, set to begin Tuesday, Feb. 18 and last through 5 p.m. Wednesday.
During that period, all others running for SGA executive positions, senators and council members will also be up for election, but a bulk of the candidates are running unopposed, including every executive position save the president.
Jana Lynn Patterson, associate vice president for student life and SGA faculty adviser, said the vacancies may indicate a larger misunderstanding about the organization’s role in making campus decisions that affect each student every day.
Though the adviser questioned student involvement, she praised the new group of hopefuls for “committing themselves to bettering this campus.”
“I think that SGA really is the voice of the students,” she said. “I wish that more people were engaged. I think that students don’t understand the influence that SGA has on decision making at the university. Our students sometimes have an adversity to losing races. I wish we had built a healthier culture around that.”
The presidential hopefuls’ openings were followed by a debate in which each candidate was given one minute to speak, followed by 30 seconds for a rebuttal. After, they were each allotted time for closing statements.
Incorvia is one of Patterson’s unafraid “exceptions,” as the rising senior has been involved in some capacity with SGA since he stepped foot on campus. He currently serves as the president for the Class of 2015.
Current Junior Class Secretary Petrillo said her shorter time within SGA brings new ideas that were overlooked by the administration set to cede its power. The position was her first within the organization.
“I think one of the biggest differences between us is that Joe has been on SGA quite a bit longer than I have,” she said. “But I think I can bring different things and new ideas to SGA that maybe weren’t there before, or haven’t been experienced before, because I was able to spend my time working on different campus initiatives prior to that.”
The almost three years of experience Incorvia brings to the table comes with its own set of benefits, the junior said, and he has his own experience to speak of outside SGA. The biology major and hopeful doctor-to-be has traveled to Ghana on a medical brigade, and he’s a member of the American Chemical Society, a national honors organization.
In her opening statement, Petrillo said she views herself as a conduit between the student body and the administration, a position she leveraged as secretary after a Jewish student and a black student found a swastika, the letters “KKK” and male genitalia drawn on a whiteboard outside their dorm in Colonnades D in September 2013.
As the university issued its own response from Smith Jackson, vice president for Student Life, Petrillo said she, along with several SGA senators, formed a student group for discussion and healing in the aftermath of the event.
In his own opening statement, Incorvia said Elon students asked about their defining experiences would have different answers, ranging from 3 a.m. Cook Out runs to time spent under the tutelage of an especially caring professor. But Incorvia said his job as executive president would be to tie all of the threads together the only way he knows how: by opening his office door.
“I want SGA to be more accessible to you all,” he said. “I want to be more than a face on a poster or a silhouette in an office.”
Patterson said the ranks of the new SGA are being filled at a transformative time for the organization and the university.
“SGA is the voice of the student body here at Elon,” she said. “For decades and decades here in our history, SGA has been the body that every major decision on this campus comes to for debate and feedback from the senior administration. And that responsibility is only growing.”
The following lists the students running for SGA office, divided by position sought and listed in alphabetical order: Sophomore Class Senator: Brett Huntley, Kelsea Johnson, Mark Schenk; Sophomore Class Secretary: Shelby Allen, Elyse Ruppert, Vashti Shiwmangal; Sophomore Class Treasurer: Mark McGann; Sophomore Class Vice President: Freddy Suppes; Sophomore Class President: Kyle Porro; Junior Class Senator: Cash Armstrong, Ruth Robinson; Junior Class President: Sean Barry, Bobby King; Senior Class Treasurer: Jennifer Lauterbach; Senior Vice President: Joshua Kaufmann, Yashvi Patel; Senior Class President: Sarah Paille-Jansa; Executive Secretary: Mathew Crehan; Executive Treasurer: Avery Steadman; Executive Vice President: Bryan Kozin; Executive President: Joseph Incorvia, Jessica Petrillo.