The Student Government Association held the 2022-2023 Spring Elections to vote for president, vice president, treasurer and senators at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for the following year.
Elections were held from April 6 through April 7. Students were able to vote in the election through their Engage account.
The election results are posted on the UL Lafayette website. The newly elected SGA Big Three are President Destiny Broussard, Vice President Colby Hebert, and Treasurer Jasmine Hebert. Students voted on the 50 seats for the president and senators of each college at UL Lafayette. The number of senators correlates to the number of students in the college they represent.
Destiny Broussard is the UL Lafayette Student Body president-elect. Broussard is a child and family studies major who is also minoring in criminal justice and is currently the College of Liberal Arts president.
“I represent the students by providing a vision for the College, continuous leadership, and direction for the planning and operation of all aspects of the College’s programs. Also, with the continuous push of updated resources for students to use at no charge,” Broussard said.
Jasmine Hebert is a senior majoring in business management who will be sworn in as SGA treasurer for the 2022-2023 academic year. Hebert is currently a senator for the College of Business.
“The Big Three consists of SGA president, vice president and treasurer. These three spearhead and oversee the senate. They work on a multitude of things throughout the year ranging all the way from programming to funding. They each have the opportunity to work closely with many different offices and departments around UL’s campus as well as higher up administration,” Hebert said.
Chief Elections Officer Troie Acker informs students that if they have a problem at their college or want something to be changed, to contact the college president or a senator who can draft a resolution that can be voted on.
“It’s encouraged for people to get out there and know their representatives,” Acker said.
Acker explains that senators attend meetings where they vote on resolutions which are formal agreements that advocate a change at a college or the entire school. Senators meet every week to vote on resolutions. An example of a current resolution is Student Fee Transparency.
According to the UL Lafayette Website, “Self-assessed fees refer to student fees that at one time were brought before the student body for a vote, and were passed. Because these fees were previously put in place by students, it is important that students can also be certain how their fees are being used.”
“If students are interested in getting involved with SGA, they should start with attending meetings. SGA meetings are open for all students to attend. They happen every Monday at 5 p.m. This will give students an insight of what goes on within SGA,“ Hebert said.
A graduating senior majoring in psychology and minoring in chemistry, Lauren Brooks is currently a College of Liberal Arts senator. Brooks works to advocate for the students at UL Lafayette in SGA.
“SGA is an organization that serves the student body by representing students through a commitment to ensure that they are in an environment conducive for the pursuit of student engagement, by ensuring opportunities for leadership development and by engaging in student driven initiatives in order to enrich the quality of student life,” Brooks said.
Students were asked if they voted or not in the SGA elections.
Magei Russell, a junior majoring in mathematics, did hear about the SGA elections but was not able to vote.
“I heard about it and I think I tried to vote. And it told me it wasn’t available,” Russell said. “I either missed or maybe I was in the wrong college.”
Darionne Dew, a senior majoring in general studies with a concentration in business studies, did hear about SGA elections and did not vote.
“I just wasn’t interested. Yeah. I didn’t go in depth. I don’t really know anyone other than the President, and that’s Reed, and only met him twice,” Dew said.
Doc Theriot, a freshman majoring in computer science, said they didn’t vote because they didn’t know the elections were happening
“I wasn’t aware they were going on,” Theriot said.
Freshmen elections occur every Fall semester. SGA gives four seats to first-year students, who vote on a president and three senators.
Students interested in running for elections can fill out an application and submit it to the Dean of Students Office. The applications are due in January for The Big Three, February for the senators, and September for the freshmen.
“I was motivated to get involved with SGA because I wanted to be an example to my first year peers and show that it is never too early to get involved on campus. It seemed as though some were a little hesitant to get involved so early on in their college career. I was determined to step up and be a voice for my incoming class,” Hebert said.
SGA mainly communicates through its Instagram page. Many of the students running in the election used Instagram to campaign for their position. Hebert ran unopposed in this election, but has used the Envision party ticket in past elections. “You can see some of what we did on our Instagram page @envisionforsga,” Hebert said.