The Student Government Association (SGA) is holding its annual elections, with voting taking place on Apr. 9 and 10. The Vermilion had the opportunity to speak with all “Big 3” presidential, vice presidential and treasurer candidates from the two major parties, Evolve and Impact as well as an independent candidate running without a party.
General information about presidential candidates
- Jaylen Carter is a first-year junior majoring in psychology who is from Donaldsonville, running independently. She served as SGA president for two years at River Parishes Community College. Being in student government has been a passion of hers since an early age, and she found joy in, “[…] bridging the gap between the juniors and seniors who came in as junior college students, and also helping aid the regular college students and guide them in […] whatever issues they wanted to solve and whatever initiatives they wanted.”
- Ava Welborn is a Baton Rouge native in her junior year, majoring in hospitality management and running under the Evolve party. Welborn has served on SGA for three years, and once she graduates, wants to continue to “[…] help students in the future just make the most out of their college journey. I think life is too short just to go to class, go home, and you know, that’s all you do.”
- She states the reason she is running for SGA president is to “[…] make the University a better place, because I love every student here, even the ones I disagree with, even the ones that might not like me. We’re all here to get an education, to develop ourselves as humans, and I’m really just running to improve the entire campus so that way people can enjoy it the same way that I do.”
- Onyeka Nwaezeapu is a junior biology major and is a Lafayette resident, running with the Impact Party. Nwaezeapu has been a part of SGA since the summer going into her freshman year and explains she has had a front row seat with being on the executive board. She has been able to see “[…] what delegations did before and compared it to this year, and it was very inspiring. Along with the aspect of falling in love with the University.”
- Nwaezeapu expresses that her love for the University is “[…] a different kind of energy and outcome that you want to have for it. And personally, I’ve just seen what great leadership can do, and I want to be a part of that change.”
General information about other vice presidential and treasurer candidates
- Sean Myers is a public relations major in his junior year, running under the Evolve party for vice president. In high school, Myers was very active in many clubs and wanted to continue that in college. In his freshman, year he ran with Welborn for freshman senate, since then he has “[…] seen several different aspects of how the University runs. I’ve been on Student Orientation staff three years now. I was on SGA […], UPC […], I’m in a fraternity, so I get to see different ways that our university works […] and how we can improve our University.”
- He expresses that his guiding force for running as vice president has always been “[…] pedal to the metal, let’s make these changes. Let’s help people where we can. […] Working with Robert and Ava, we can actually make those changes, because we have a lot of great ideas […] we just have that driving force behind them to actually make them come true.”
- Brenden Daigle is a sophomore majoring in computer science running for vice president under the Impact party. Daigle says that “[…] a lot of my strengths come from supporting Onyeka throughout this whole process and providing documentation […] doing a lot of the back end work, so she can focus on the external ideas and move the plan forward.”
- If elected, he projects that he will “[…] incorporate a lot of that same work into the position. I want to be that kind of, like, the voice for the Senate in order to get these things done. And also to have accountability involved.”
- Robert Batarseh is a kinesiology junior, running for treasurer under the Evolve party. When he came to UL Lafayette, he was “[…] terrified of everything. For about a year and a half, I was searching up ways I could give back to the student body, how I can be more involved to better their lives.”
- He said through his president and vice presidential candidates, in Evolve, he was introduced to SGA and thought “[…] that this would be a great opportunity to give back to the student body the same way that I feel like they have given me so much.” He says he is running as treasurer to “[…] put myself as best of a position to be in, to help the student body, to give them the best college experience they can get.”
- Zackari Rodgers is an economics and accounting double major in his junior year. Rodgers explains that if elected as treasurer his knowledge and capabilities as a double major in the College of Business would make dealing with numbers natural to him. He has held a position as treasurer for two years in a different organization, where he has gained knowledge and experience.
- As for the position, he says, “[…] running for this is just something natural for me […] I had the privilege to work under the current SGA treasury […] sort of shadow her, and write about 10 appropriations, understanding how the finance committee works […] the ins and outs of what all the treasurer actually does.” He wishes to transfer his knowledge to the position and be an effective treasurer for SGA.
Why should students vote for you?
- Carter (Independent) says students should vote for her because she will make sure student’s voices “[…] aren’t only heard, but amplified. Because I do believe our university to be a very student-led, student-focused, but I do think sometimes we are heard […] but it may not be processed […] acted on […] operated […] dealt with in a timely fashion. And I want to fix that. I want to be the direct line of change that not only brings about the change but brings it about swiftly.”
- She then says she wants students to feel like, “‘She truly understands me and did the best she could.’, ‘She applied things the best way she could’ and ‘At the end of the day, I am happy.’’’
- Welborn (Evolve) responded, “I don’t really get a huge benefit from doing this. This is not for my self benefit. It’s too much work to be a resume booster, that’s not why I’m doing this. […] I think because I am coming from such an honest perspective, and because this is where my passion, my fulfillment lies, I believe that’s why people should vote for me.” She later then explains that “[…] not everybody finds joy and fulfilment in student engagement and making things better in different areas […] in a college setting. And this is what I live for. This is my future career.”
- “Over the past three years, I’ve made so many changes on campus, whether it’s seen or not, because I try not to be too vocal about it. I got the treadmills replaced, I’ve improved student organizations, advertised student businesses. […] I’ve made so many changes so far, and I think with my experience […], determination […], passion […] I think that my party, Evolve, can just make so many changes that not every single person in my position would be able to make.” Welborn said.
- She finalized her response with, “So, I think if somebody wants to see real change on this University and somebody who knows what they’re doing and can do everything that they’re saying effectively, then they should vote Evolve.”
- Nwaezeapu (Impact) started off by saying that “[…] with the three candidates, including myself, I do believe that the University would be in great hands with either one of us, not to say that I don’t want to win.” She says students should vote for her because she is a “[…] person that knows my strengths, but I also know my weaknesses as well. It’s hard to take criticism, but I have learned over the years that that’s where a lot of our experiences in our learning comes from.”
- She expressed that she knows she is going to give it her all and, “I have always been one to usually speak for others when they were too frightened, or fearful to say anything. […] Like I said in the debate, leadership positions, I’ve always ran from them but it keeps on presenting itself, and I just want to use what I can.”
What are some of your goals as a party?
- Carter (Independent) answered that she would like to “[…] focus not only parking reforms, […] but my biggest thing is student disputes and better ways to help get solutions brought out of that. […] A student’s well being, where they have to lay their head, if they have issues with this new place they call home for the next 10 months, then it’s a serious problem.”
- She says people have told her she is “[…] very ambitious for running with this being my first year, […] and I want to make change while I’m here. And I want to be able to do something for my peers and others around me while I’m here.”
- Later on, she elaborates on her goals and that she would “[…] like to provide something similar to how freshmen have living learning communities when they first come. I feel like it’s important to continue that as you go into your different years […] because sometimes students are able to do that organically and on their own, but what about the students who aren’t? They still don’t feel like they found their people or where they belong, or they still haven’t found their like minded people.”
- Welborn (Evolve) and her party, “[…] call them our S.M.A.R.T. goals. I’m a business major, and if y’all don’t know, S.M.A.R.T. goals is, like, a business thing, but we changed what the letters stand for. […] Sustainability, mental health and wellness, athletics, reflective student engagement and technology and innovation. […] I think a lot of people like to shoot for the stars when it comes to improving the University, but we are a student organization. We have limits on funding, and we have limits on what we can and can’t do.”
- She then states that they want to “ […] focus on things that we can control. So for sustainability, we really just want to find in the cafeteria a good food composting system because we waste thousands and thousands of pounds of food. […] I’ve suffered from poor mental health, my VP has suffered from poor mental health, and we all know what’s happened recently on campus in the past couple of years. So, we really just want to improve the campus amenities. […] There’s Uwill, which has really helped a lot of our students, however, we offer free counseling for all of our students. […] we have about six on-campus counselors for 19,000 students. […] That’s not really equitable.”
- Myers (Evolve) stated that Welborn, Batarseh and him “[…] see first-hand that our student athletes are not really connected with the campus. They do stuff on their own time, and the rest of students do stuff on their own time. In the end though, we’re all paying the same amount of student fees, […] so we need to be able to provide them resources that every other student can get.”
- He also added that, “Under reflective student engagement, we really just want our students to get involved on campus. […] Student organizations can have up to […] $1,000 a semester to […] work on whatever they need, as long as it is not food related. […] Not a lot of student orgs know about this. It’s a great resource, […] but it’s still something we can continue using.” Another aspect that he said Evolve wants to implement under reflective student engagement is a multicultural center to create a safe space for students of minority backgrounds and have a hangout space for students that is not just hallways in the Union.
- Batarseh (Evolve) spoke about how Evolve wants to focus on the technology and innovation aspect of their S.M.A.R.T. goals by focusing on the fact that the University holds an R1 institution status and “[…] should not be held back by our Wi-Fi. Additionally […] we want to work on the cellular dead zones throughout the Union.”
- He also added that “AI is often very demonized by teachers, and we want to work on implementing a course-wide policy to implement AI into our learning so that we can use it for our benefit. Because AI is revolutionary, it’s incredible what we can do with it. Not using it would be doing ourselves a disservice.”
- Daigle (Impact) explained that Impact is “trying to hit four main areas on campus: student admin action, campus convenience, parking reforms and scholarly initiatives. […] We kind of want to tailor each one towards specific aspects of the student body. One just being your day-to-day life, another being parking reforms, which influences us all academics in your classes, and also keeping the administration, UL, accountable for their actions, just as much as we are as students.”
- He also added that “[…] one of the main things we want to do is create a monthly Town Hall forum in which we can directly ask administration questions and have our voices heard without having to go through unanswered emails and going through the whole process. […] another one of our primary things is want to create a ‘Cajun Wallet’ program in which we incorporate your Cajun ID to your phone, so you could use your phone to get into your dorm, dining hall and also use it as a more accessible way to pay your funds and anything else without having to go through the trouble of Ulink.”
- Nwaezeapu (Impact) added to Daigle’s comment that, “We met up with the 80 people in our party, and we came up with these things, and we tried to include as much student representation as we could, but that is always impossible, because there’s always someone being left out. […] our goals aren’t limited to what we have been advertising. Our goals are any problem of any student, and if it’s raised aware to us, we’re going to ask about it, and we’re going to try to find a common ground for it. We may not be able to get what exactly we’re asking for, but at least we’ll have the answer to why something is the way it is, or what’s the next step to making it better. So […] our goals are anything that the students need.”
How will you work towards transparency between SGA and the student body?
- Carter (Independent) commented that “[…] transparency is always my big thing in my day to day life. I can’t stand liars. I can’t stand dishonest people. So I wouldn’t want to be in a higher position where my students feel a sense of distrust with me, but they feel like they don’t believe whatever I said in my campaign. […] I like to present myself as an open book if a student sees me […] you know, you can stop me.”
- She also added that the “[…] only thing I probably wouldn’t be transparent about is if something was still in the works, wasn’t finalized, is something genuinely internal, only meant for SGA ears, only at that point. But my best way I feel to go about transparency is to be an open book myself when it comes to students needing to feel like they have someone they could talk to like they shouldn’t just see me as, ‘Oh, that’s our new SGA president. All hail!’, you know? I should still be seen as a classmate, a peer, a friend, a confidant.”
- Welborn (Evolve) explained that a new initiative that she would start is having meeting minutes uploaded to the SGA website for all the student body to see. She also commented that, for now, Instagram Senate recap posts and the SGA website give a quick overview for students to learn about SGA happenings.
- Batarseh (Evolve) expressed that if he is elected as treasurer he would “[…] like tangible and applicable things of just, like, you know, QR codes around campus and white boards and presentations of things about where our money is going, we also want to highly encourage people to come to SGA meetings. They’re open to the public. […] I’m currently the Senate Chair for SGA, so I run and organize the meetings, but like, we very rarely get anybody to show up. Like it’s completely free and completely accessible to any UL student, we want to encourage that. The current SGA marketing executives are doing a great job with the transparency. Of course, we want to continue that and improve it so that they know exactly where their money is going, because, you know, you don’t want to just give us money and not know where it’s handling. On top of that, I really enjoy the tangibility aspects of transparency, not just, like vague ideas and, you know, like putting links on websites that lead you to what we’re doing. Instead, having things that are just open, the union everybody’s in there, we could have […] whiteboards and poster boards or whatever, telling the students where their money is going. We can do that for the entirety of this.
- Daigle (Impact) stated that “[…] one of our primary initiatives, actually, is to create a committee of development on the SGA with the sole purpose of taking outside feedback of the student body and applying that within the SGA. Because […] you can’t have a well functioning student government without taking the voices of everybody. And I think having a more effective way of hearing what they would like to see from SGA and what they would like to see change allows us to be able to better present that in our meetings and better advocate for those voices. And also, something else we want to do is one, allow time in every Monday SGA meeting to underrepresented groups to speak out in our meetings, so you can allow for that voice to be heard. […] kind of create, like, more transparent environment where people feel free and they feel able to speak up […] allow the voices to be heard.
Final notes that you want to give to the student body.
- Carter (Independent) – “Don’t forget to vote April 9th on Campus Groups. […] Don’t forget that my mission as your next SGA president is to use collaboration, transparency, innovative solutions and aim to strengthen the connection between students and administration, empower the student voice and to continue to foster an inclusive environment where all students can strive. With my leadership, I promise to work tirelessly to ensure our University continues to be a place where the student body feels valued, supported and empowered.
- Welborn (Evolve)– “Every student should vote, one vote could change just about everything. If every person was like, ‘My vote doesn’t matter,’ then nothing would get done.” Also, you can cross vote, just because you have one friend in one party, doesn’t mean you have to vote the entirety of that party. […] I just really emphasize that students look into each party’s platform and see what they actually agree with and really what’s going to change your college experience.”
- Daigle (Impact)- “Go vote, make your voice heard.”
- Nwaezeapu (Impact)- “I think it’s common that there’s this big misconception about SGA being political. We are not. We talk about dishwashers and napkins. And I just want people to understand that we are the most safest, neutral organization on campus and everyone is welcome.”