With a few weeks in office under his belt, new SGA President and junior Kyle Porro has a clear idea of what he’d like to accomplish this term.
Sustainability, school spirit and inclusivity are at the top of his list of priorities after winning a highly contest three-person race for president that ended in a one-day run-off election.
He was inaugurated March 29 and led his first meeting about a week later, using his time since to ease into the position and replace outgoing members of the Senate.
The election, in which he staved off fellow juniors and competitors Steven Armendariz and Chris Tarpley, was still on his mind — particularly the adrenaline high that caused him not to eat for 24 hours.
“It was very interesting,” Porro said. “In terms of qualifications, we were all neck and neck. I think they both would’ve done a phenomenal job.
“I’m still surprised, in a lot of ways, that I won that election.”
Now, Porro sits in his office, without much decoration, looking at a to-do list on his whiteboard.
He wants SGA to be more proactive issues that students and the Elon community are discussing — starting with drafting a resolution to the controversial House Bill 2 signed into law last month.
He wants to promote more sustainable efforts and is working with the Office of Sustainability on a bike-share program.
And he wants a greater sense of community, understanding and discussion among students, which would lead to a broader school spirit that isn’t concentrated in whichever clubs or organizations students are affiliated with.
“A sense of belonging, sustainability and the idea of inclusivity and being accepting of one another — those are the three big pillars that we’re really going to be trying to chip away at,” Porro said.
Porro’s held a number of different positions with SGA, most recently senator for the Love School of Business. He was freshman class vice president and sophomore class president before studying abroad this past fall.
He’s also served as chair of the Election Committee and co-chair of the Student Issues Committee, while facilitating the writing of the Acorn Fund and serving on the committee for the Fun Fund.
It’s a wide array of experiences that he believes prepared him for his current role.
“I just got really into SGA,” Porro, who’s also a tour guide, said. “I knew very early on that I had found a very cool thing on campus. Every single semester that I’ve been on campus, I’ve tried to stay involved with it. I’ve done a whole bunch of different positions, but the whole time, I knew that I wanted to [be president] because I loved SGA so much.
“I thought that this position could be the most beneficial for Elon in general in terms of making sure SGA can do everything it can. Since I had been involved in so many of the behind-the-scene parts of SGA, I knew how it worked and how it ran.
“I wanted to make sure that somebody who was leading was somebody who has done all the other stuff in SGA and who knows what SGA is.”
Porro said he’s also focused on building up morale within SGA to lead to better conversations and hopefully be more proactive.
During the last meeting before the new term started, the whole group conducted a workshop to analyze the past year and see what could be improved upon. Porro still has the posters they wrote on during that meeting in his office.
Porro has spent most of the last couple weeks filling seats in the Senate that were held by graduating seniors. He said he’ll start focusing more on his specific goals in the coming weeks.
The first few days in office have been smooth, as he’s quickly realized how much time goes into little things like checking his email and checking in with various committees.
With the intense election in the past, Porro looks ahead to how he can best serve Elon in the upcoming year.
“It’s weird,” Porro said. “It’s, one, weird because this has always been the end goal. Now I’m here. Now it’s happening. It’s crazy.
“It’s also crazy because that means I’m graduating in a year. It’s like, ‘How did this happen?’ I’m so excited for the term.”