Students elect
new SGA and class officers
Campus prepares for the next school year
By Julia Knox
Colorful posters fill the walls of
Moody, Pleasants and West. Babcock is full of eager candidates giving campaign speeches.
Every night, a different student knocks on your door to inform you that she is
the right person for the job.
April is election time at Hollins.
As the school year winds down, so does the reign of the current Student
Government Association (SGA) administration. Focus begins to turn to next year,
and who will fill the 26 open elected positions – not to mention the 20
appointed positions.
Tonight, April 11, students are
electing their class officers for the 2005-2006 school year. The rising sophomore-senior
classes are responsible for each electing a class president, vice-president,
secretary, treasurer, and two senators (the incoming freshman class holds
elections for their officers in early September). The election process for
classes and SGA are the same, besides one exception: in class elections,
students may only vote for their class positions. In SGA elections, the entire
student body votes, including the departing seniors (they act as proxys for the
incoming freshman class).
For the class of 2006, candidates
are as follows: Rebecca Stuart for president, Jennifer Roberts and Adrienne
Carter for vice-president, Emily Eigel and Emily Maass for secretary, Nandini
Roy and Marly Wilson for co-treasurers and Kiki Toner for Senator. There was no
candidate for the second senator.
Stuart, who currently serves as
junior class president, is excited to be running for senior class president.
“Senior year is the most exciting
time at Hollins,” she said. “There’s so much to do – Ring Night, senior week,
100th night, tinker scares, graduation – and I’m really looking
forward to planning these events and making the most of our last year.”
For the class of 2007, the
following candidates are running: Brittany Addison-Prescott and Candice Dalton
for president, Julia Knox for vice-president and Dee Mudzingwa for treasurer.
No candidates are running for secretary or senator.
“I would like to be junior class
president because I think I can help our class rise to our full potential by
utilizing Ring Night and other socials to magnify our unique abilities,” said
Addison-Prescott. “With the tag team of Julia and myself in office, our class
will have the best year ever at Hollins.”
If elected, Addison-Prescott plans
to hold a variety of fundraisers, including “valigrams” (singing telegrams on
Valentine’s Day) and homemade soap sales, a fundraiser that was quite
successful this year for the sophomore class. She would also like to hold Desperate Housewives viewing parties as
sister-class socials between the juniors and freshmen.
For the class of 2008, Shivaughn
Ferguson is running for president, Christie Houser is running for
vice-president, Sierra Setchel is running for treasurer, and Ashley Parker and
Moira Grace are running for senators.
“I was freshman class president
this year,” said
SGA elections occur the week
before class elections. Each year, elections are held for eight positions:
president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, Academic Policy chair, Student
Conduct Council chair,
In order to run, candidates must
turn in a statement declaring their reasons for wanting the position. The
statements are then hung in Moody on a Thursday, along with any flyers or
posters the candidate submits. On Sunday, candidates deliver their campaign
speech in Babcock. Elections are held Monday, with any necessary run-offs on
Tuesday.
This year’s SGA elections occurred
on April 4. That night, the current SGA administration gathered on the steps of
Cocke to announce the winners in song form, an old Hollins tradition. At the
step singing, the following winners were announced: Gwen Fernandez ’06 for
president, Christine Jehu ’06 for vice-president, Sarah Poulton ’06 for
secretary, Meg McFerren ’06 for treasurer, Sarah Parkington ’06 for Student
Conduct Council chair, and Rachel Banger ’06 for Academic Policy chair.
In order to win the election, a
candidate must have more than 50 percent of all votes cast. If a candidate does
not garner this 50 percent, a run-off is announced between two candidates who
captured the most votes. A candidate must simply get the majority of the votes
to win the run-off. This year, run-offs were necessary for both Appeal Board
chair and
Many candidates ran unopposed.
While there is never a huge turnout of candidates for elected positions, it is
surprising to some that so few people decided to run.
““I’m happy for all the winners,
but I wish there had been more choices,” said Elizabeth Bartenstein ’07. “I
think Gwen will do a good job as president, but I wish there had been more than
one person running. And the people that actually did have more than one person
running were all run-offs, so…,” she trailed off.
Following SGA and class elections,
appointment board convenes to elect appointed SGA positions. Appointed
positions include: Hollins Activites Board chair and all HAB division chairs
(social events, contemporary and cultural events, special events, general
speakers bureau, publicity and promotions, club coordinator, athletics
association and Student Relgious Life Association), as well as three judicial
board members from each class.
In order to be considered for an
appointed position, interested candidates must submit an application and be
interviewed by appointment board. Based on the applications and interviews, the
board will then choose the candidates they feel are best suited for the job.
The SGA secretary will then announce the appointments at the next Senate, at
which time they will be approved or denied. Senate must approve appointed
candidates before they can begin serving.
Appointment board will make their
decisions Sunday, April 17 and announce them at Senate on April 19.
It has always been questioned as
to why some positions are elected and others are appointed. Lisa Bower ’05, the
current SGA vice-president, explained, “the appointed positions all require a
certain skill that is necessary to complete the job well. For example, the AA
chair should have some sort of experience in athletics.
“Elected positions, like SGA
president, are more based on character and leadership,” she continued. “As long
as they have the time and commitment, basically anybody could be SGA
vice-president. Our job as appointment board is to appoint the person we feel
could best complete the job.”
Additionally, SGA positions have a
much broader audience. They act as representatives of the entire student body,
so the students deserve a chance to elect the person they would like to
represent them. A position like social events chair is much more specific –
they are simply responsible for planning events like Mayfest and Fall Party.
Each of the positions is
responsible for representing a portion of the student body. Therefore it’s
important that students run for elected positions or apply for appointed
positions, and their fellow students vote.
“If you don’t vote,” said Bower,
“you don’t really have a right to complain about the way SGA is run.”