Elon juniors Jack Corby and Daniel Dorociak began their campaigns earlier this week in the first fully virtual race for the top spot in the Student Government Association — executive president.
Corby currently serves as the class of 2022 secretary while Dorociak serves as the class of 2022 vice president. Corby and Dorociak both say their campaigns are reflective of the challenges the university faced this past year.
“This year we've been through a lot of turmoil, a hardship, with the COVID-19 pandemic with the reckoning of race after this June with George Floyd's murder, and a very polarizing election,” Dorociak said. “You know, 2020 was just chaotic.”
If elected student body president, Dorociak said he will be in weekly communication with Dean of Student Jana Lynn Patterson and the Ready & Resilient Committee to relay essential information to students regarding COVID-19 protocols and continued vaccination efforts.
Corby hopes to bring the Elon community together by improving communication errors he noticed in the university’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and adding a student representative to the Ready & Resilient Committee.
“We have a 19 person Ready & Resilient team that was formed last April to kind of combat COVID and plan for the 2020-21 school year,” Corby said. “While we were all online, it was hard to get student opinions. But of that 19 person committee, not one student is on it.”
Dorociak’s platform is based on unity and includes the initiatives of community, spirit and openness. His main priority is to foster transparency between the administration and the student body.
To foster this transparency, Dorociak says he would post weekly about SGA discussions and allow the student body to submit issues they would like him to present to the senior staff.
“It’s making sure that [students are] fully aware of it, because that is what is going to make the public confident,” Dorociak said. “They're going to feel more aware of everything and they're going to feel okay, I can trust him for information.”
Corby’s platform is based on what he refers to as the five C’s: continuity, communication, community, culture and care. Through this platform, one of his main priorities is to focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
“Just understanding DEI holistically,” Corby said. “So understanding it's two separate issues, diversity and inclusion, and there are two separate initiatives.”
Voting for SGA candidates opens on Phoenix Connect at 9 a.m. on March 18 and closes at 5 p.m. on March 19. Every undergraduate student who has paid student activity fees or abroad student fees can vote.