Writers: Joann Seow, Kayla Woods-Crane, Andrew Courville
Amid the 2026 Student Government Association (SGA) election campaigns at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a Candidate Forum was held on Wednesday, March 29, to allow each party’s candidates for president, vice president and treasurer to answer questions relevant to their positions.
SGA has numerous roles on campus to enhance the student experience, like funding student organizations, college projects and serving as the liaison between the student body and University administration.
SGA also audits student fees each year, which fund club sports, student athletes, spirit groups, on-campus news outlets, University Program Council, lyceum events, as well as parts of transportation, health and safety services. Student-assessed fees are voted on by students. This election cycle has a referendum, which, if passed, would be the first since 2013.
Referendum 1 proposes redistributing funds from the L’Acadien Yearbook, for which full-time undergraduate students currently pay $12 each fall semester. If instituted, $2 will transfer to the Mental Health and Counseling Center, and $1 will fund campus police services.
The extra funds would be able to expand on these essential services. L’Acadien contends that its operations would be damaged long-term.
Parties in SGA elections dissolve after each election to prevent a partisan divide. Each party has candidate lists and platforms for the executive branch and every college delegation. Voting will be open from 6 a.m. on Wednesday, April 1, to 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 2. Students can vote via a link sent to their University e-mail.
Spark for SGA has Emily Lamkin for president, Zackari Rodgers for vice president and Grayson Kervin for treasurer.
Vision for SGA has Brendan Daigle for president, Gabrielle St. Pierre for vice president and Isaac Fife for treasurer.
Q: Students often raise concerns about affordability of campus resources and access to opportunities. As SGA president, how would you advocate for students’ needs while working with university administration?
As the current vice president of SGA, Daigle explained that he is familiar with collaborating with administration and students to advocate for their needs. He said he believes that SGA is the liaison between the administration and students, so it is his job to ensure that both groups’ needs are being met.
“I think it should be up to the students to determine what they would like to see change on campus, so we want to open up this opportunity for them,” Daigle said.
Vision plans to achieve this by creating a feedback portal on SGA’s website, allowing students to voice issues they see on campus. They also plan to create an open forum and voting portal where students can vote on initiatives they think are most important.
Lamkin, who currently serves as the SGA Senate Chair, said, “One of our main goals in the Spark party is to start and continue open and meaningful conversations on this campus.”
Lamkin highlighted her party’s goal of continuing the conversation with students beyond campaigning and elections, presenting two initiatives to bridge the communication gap between students and SGA. The first initiative is an “Ask-Me-Anything” tabling event that will take place on campus once or twice a month. This aims to provide a platform for direct conversation between students and student representatives.
The other initiative is reaching out to student organizations to present at the weekly SGA meeting, talk about their organization and any problems or contributions to campus they may have. This aims to improve the efforts by SGA in reaching out to student organizations.
Q: Many students feel disconnected from SGA or believe it has little impact on their daily lives. If elected, how would you prove that SGA is relevant and capable of creating real change for students?
Lamkin said, “If elected, I want SGA to be more relevant on campus than it already is.”
Reiterating her party’s goal of continuing the conversation with students, Lamkin said that she wants to ensure students are invited to speak, whether as an organization or as an individual. She aims to let the students’ voices be heard in the room where the decisions are made.
Daigle said he believed that as president, it is his responsibility to reach out to students to make sure they have the opportunity to communicate any ideas they may have. Since being vice president, Daigle has reached out to various organizations to come speak at SGA meetings. He also said he thought the public forums they had for students worked very well for platforming on-campus issues.
“I think transparency between SGA and the students is something that’s immensely important. And something that I would work to build with my term as president.”
Q: Leadership often requires making difficult or unpopular decisions. Can you describe a time when you had to take a stance that others disagreed with and how that experience would shape your leadership as SGA president?
Daigle described the impact the structural deficit has had on the University. He said this past year, SGA did not have enough money to distribute for all of their college projects. Through collaboration with his executive board, they were able to learn how to redistribute the funds they had in an efficient manner. He explained that though every decision made by SGA won’t be popular, it is his responsibility to make sure student needs are being met.
“I will work to make sure that no matter what ailments the university is going through, students of our university should not be the ones that face that.”
Lamkin began her answer by saying that in the past, she would handle such situations by looking toward leadership and administration, following their opinion of what is best. However, she said that from her leadership experiences, she wants to focus on the needs of students. She brought up her party’s red zone awareness initiative, which she said she has been advocating for since her freshman year, but the administration expressed disapproval due to budget issues and the promotion of underage drinking and partying.
“It’s going to happen anyway. If it’s going to happen anyway, it’s our job as student leaders to protect students, not only on this campus, but as well as off of it,” Lamkin said.
She stressed the importance of taking into account the needs of students, which sometimes have to be prioritized over the wants of administration.
Q: Student Senate legislation can sometimes stall or lack follow through. What specific steps would you take to ensure that bills passed by the Senate lead to meaningful action and results for students?
To ensure bills passed by the Senate are followed through for students, Rodgers proposed restructuring and implementing a new system within SGA, which involves giving students an answer within two or three weeks. Rodgers currently serves as SGA Treasurer.
“Regarding student concerns, we need to have at least that two or three week period, and if we don’t have an answer by then, that’s when we need to hold each other accountable,” Rodgers said.
St. Pierre, the current Chief of Staff, said that she believes accountability is necessary and without it, SGA can’t accomplish anything. One of the first steps she would take is to ensure the legislative branch knows what they are voting on whenever the ideas are brought up. She said she wants to use SGA’s development committee to its fullest extent to make sure that internally, SGA is running properly. She mentioned that more student involvement would increase accountability in SGA by having students speak directly to them about campus issues.
“I think it’s so important to make sure that everyone knows what they’re voting on, everyone has the space to ask questions and to have conversation about those things,” she said.
Q: The Vice President plays a key role in shaping the effectiveness of the Student Senate. What reforms or improvements would you introduce to make Senate meetings more productive and ensure legislation truly reflects student needs?
St. Pierre reiterated her earlier points about the efficiency of SGA. She said she wants to make sure that SGA committees are working effectively and efficiently. “I think that making sure that the heads of those committees are making sure that those are working properly, and we’re able to utilize them to their full extent,” she explained.
Rodgers answered by placing emphasis on physically writing things down, which he said can be seen as minute, but is frequently overlooked due to the ease of digital devices. He said that by writing things down, problems like notes on devices getting deleted, or verbal information getting lost in translation, can be avoided.
“We can always go back to that good old pen and paper that’s also going back to hold each other accountable,” Rodgers said.
Q: The SGA treasurer is responsible for overseeing student funds and ensuring their use responsibly. What principles would guide your decision making when allocating funds to student organizations?
Fife, the current College of Business President, explained that he thought allocating funds requested by organizations should be done based on context and handled by him and the finance committee. He said he would review requests and rank them by priority based on how much they would impact the student body. Planning is key for Fife, and being proactive and reaching out to organizations about what they are going to need is important for him to know how to allocate those funds.
“I think being proactive, taking a practical approach and reaching out to these organizations and saying, ‘Hey, do you have a rough idea of where your money is gonna be spent on events and what things you may be funding for,’ Fife said. “And this would give us a better idea of how to allocate those funds to those students.”
Kervin, currently a College of Business Senator, said that to guide his decision-making, he would use his finance committee as well as the SGA senate, which are elected by students in the respective colleges and hence serve as a voice for the overall student population.
Kervin said, “I believe that I should not be making these decisions based off of my own opinions or the opinions of only a few people in a small room.”
He said that decisions should be agreed upon by the committee by voting upon presenting to the delegation. Kervin also brought up his proposal to swap the structure of the SGA programming and operating expense accounts, so that they can advocate for better allocation of funds to colleges and student organizations.
Q: If the SGA budget were limited and multiple organizations requested funding at the same time, how would you prioritize requests while still supporting a wide range of student activities?
Kervin said, “It is not at my discretion to determine what organization should get how much funding on my own, because I’m only one person with one experience and one opinion.”
Kervin reiterated reliance on the senate and delegation, and proposed two solutions that they can work with. The first is to use what is left over in the limited budget and split that up evenly, giving an equal amount to every student organization that requests funding. The second is having a conversation with the organizations, finding out their return on investments and what their plans are with the money, and then deciding as a senate what they believe should be prioritized.
He brought up his party’s initiative to invite student organizations to the weekly SGA meetings, to let the organizations explain what they want the funds for, so that the voters would be able to make a more educated decision.
Fife said, again, that while allocating funds to fulfill requests, he and his committee would prioritize organizations that make the biggest impact on campus. He assured the audience that this doesn’t mean smaller organizations would be neglected, but he would support them in other ways, like connecting them to faculty who can help, or promoting their fundraising events.
“I don’t believe it would ever get to this point if I were elected, but with handling multiple organizations asking for funds on a limited budget, I think it’s important, like I said in my last question, to prioritize which organizations are making the base impact on the campus as a whole,” he said.