As we transition from the start of the school year into fall, another transition is nearing the Stevens community: the election of a new Student Government Association (SGA) President and Vice-President of Operations (VPO). Currently, three tickets have announced their intent to run via campaign Instagram accounts: Brandon Seidman and Simon Pepa, E.J. Hannah and Jason Buckman, and Samantha Molla and Adrian Castellanos. The Stute will be featuring an in-depth conversation with each ticket in next week’s issue on November 1. But before covering the new, we figured it would be in good spirit to celebrate the accomplishments of the old.
Jason Chlus and Ryan Tom were inaugurated this past January, after winning a run-off election. Sworn in with them was their Cabinet: Vice President of Finance (VFP) Elena Malova, Vice President of Student Interests (VPSI) Nina Ioanis, Vice President of Academic Affairs (VPAA) Alex Reina, and Secretary Madison Gemma.
In early interviews with The Stute, both before and after getting elected, Chlus stated several goals he had for his term, including pushing the administration to be “more transparent with its finances,” reworking aspects of the SGA to enable senators to focus more on initiatives that enhance the Stevens experience, increasing productivity while fostering positivity and excitement within the SGA, reinstating the Wednesday academic break from 1 to 5 p.m., and making the SGA a role model for efficiency and clarity for other clubs. The overall goal: involving the student body more in the core decision-making processes that affect the future of Stevens.
Speaking on the progress of their initial campaign goals, VPO Ryan Tom said, the Cabinet has “been working on re-evaluating all SGA line items, and in particular working with club sports to establish a better system.” By the end of their cabinet term, they plan to share all the information they have with the student body, but “further transparency is an ongoing issue that will require more work for future cabinets.” In regard to academic break, Tom said, “Alex and Jason have already made progress with the Provost for a partial restoration for the Spring, but a full restoration probably won’t be possible until next Fall at the earliest.”
As for SGA efficiency, Tom said, “we have massively reduced the time of reports at Senate meetings by cleaning up the slides used. The time spent on reports is now a third of what it used to be, and this has enabled us to accomplish more at meetings by dedicating time to discussing ideas while everyone is still feeling fresh.” He also mentioned that senators were being put on committees not just based on interest, but also those where they can have the greatest impact. Tom explained, “One of the issues we had in the past was too many senators wanting to be on the same committee (specifically the Campus Life Committee) and this left the committees somewhat lopsided in terms of manpower. Those same senators also tended to become removed and uninvolved in such large committees, while smaller committees struggled to accomplish much. A major goal I had was to evenly distribute manpower among committees, and this is why I asked senators to rank committees. By acknowledging everyone’s interests but also providing an even distribution to each committee, I feel that we have empowered the committees to be the most successful that they have ever been in my three years in the SGA.”
However, not all has been smooth sailing. Earlier this year, the Senate had 15 senators resign. According to Secretary Maddie Gemma, vacancy elections are “extremely common as students may resign due to shifting priorities, interests, and opportunities.” She also stated, “I do not think there was a loss of interest in the position, but rather a peaking of new interests and goals for students in other areas of campus. We are grateful for all those that have served the student body, and respect the decision of those that choose to leave.” Tom also added that many of the senators who resigned or chose not to re-run “had already been disconnected” from the SGA and were “not attending Senate meetings or following through on initiatives.” He stated, “While we did have a decline in physical manpower, we are very proud of those senators who chose to stay involved, as they have all put in significant amounts of work and made serious accomplishments.”
In general, multiple rounds of vacancy elections are done each semester, typically for junior and senior seats until the seats are filled, and running them several times allows those that might not have heard about the general elections the opportunity to get involved. She added, “currently we have 25 Senators and by running vacancies we are able gain new students excited and optimistic about the future of Stevens. I have already had students reach out to me about the third round of vacancies.”
Nonetheless, the cabinet has implemented several changes since the beginning of the year.
Increased resources for student orgs
One of the primary responsibilities of the SGA is delegating the Student Activity Fee (SAF) to campus organizations. In order to assist student organizations with using DuckLink’s Finances portal, SGA VPF Elena Malova created videos for club treasurers. “I’m a visual learner, so I thought people would appreciate a visual way of explaining how to go through DuckLink to fill things out,” explained Malova. “Each video’s only a minute and a half, and you can pause it and watch how I do it for visual instruction,” she added. Currently, there are four videos: how to submit AFRs and reallocations, how to submit a catalog purchase, how to submit a catering order, and how to submit receipts.
Besides the videos, substantial changes to the structure of Leadership Connect were also implemented this Fall. The structure of the day was changed to model a traditional conference structure, and allowed attendees to choose workshops to attend, rather than a series of lectures held in the same room. Additionally, a randomized lunch and learn networking session was added to help student leaders meet with other student leaders, ideally people they hadn’t met previously. According to VPSI Nina Ioanis, these changes were implemented “in an attempt to better cater to the varying experience levels of the attendees […] for returners who have attended the Connect conferences for multiple years in a row, leadership development workshops can seem redundant.” The requirement for treasurers was also reduced to one hour financial breakouts that were rolling throughout the day, rather than the whole conference, based on subcommittee. “A lot of the treasurers also expressed appreciation for the way Lily and Elena were able to tailor the sessions to the more specific perspectives of the smaller groupings of organizations that were present at each session,” explained Ioanis.
Although it was her first Connect, Ioanis believes the changes went smoothly. “I personally thought the contents of each of the breakouts were also very helpful, but I credit that entirely to the presenters who so graciously accepted the invitations to speak,” she said. When asked what she would do differently next time, she cited returning attendees as an issue again. “A few suggestions had been to potentially only make mandatory the 2 hour update portion from the Office of Student Life, for anyone who had been to a Leadership Connect in the past,” she said. Another idea was to have meetings with Student Life Liaisons, a new resource available for student leaders, during the event, but “finding such a large portion of any day that could fit into so many people’s schedules, let alone getting all of the M-F administration to come to work on a Saturday might be asking a lot.”
Increased advocacy for students
Accomplishments from the academic side included the creation of student advisory boards for the School of Business and School of Systems and Enterprises (SSE). Both were created last spring, thanks to partners in both schools as well as VPAA Alex Reina. The process included meeting with the Dean of the School of Business to go over the purpose of creating a board and to gauge interest. Next, he had to coordinate with folks from the school (Brandon Griffin, Michelle Crilly, and Ann Murphy) to figure out the specifics of the board, including how many students would be on it and how representation would work. After creating and sending an application to students, interest was collected, and eight students, two from each year, were chosen to be on the board. So far, the board has met three times and its recent accomplishments include an increased number of research opportunities available to freshmen and sophomores and improved course contents of a sophomore-level course, BT 290.
The advisory board for SSE was started prior to Reina’s term; former VPAA Marianna Fleming handled the selection of students, but Reina “worked with Dean Massoud, Dean Fogarty, and Greg Kennelty to work out the logistics of the board and to schedule the first meeting.”
In terms of the future of the SGA, Gemma sees involvement increasing as the scope and presence of the SGA continues to grow. “Currently there are 12 committees that are engaging with students in ways previously not done before, and I believe this will increase the desire for involvement over the years,” she said. When asked about student-centricity, Malova stated it was both the SGA and administration’s job to tackle because they “work together to make the inside and outside of the classroom experience the best we can. It’s not 100% perfect but nothing in the world is, except for my mommy, so what we are left with is just to make the experience better and better each year. And that’s what we aim to do.” On the biggest lesson learned during their term, Reina said he was surprised “how interconnected everything is,” and that “making a change in one area could have drastic effects somewhere you wouldn’t expect.”
The current cabinet had some wisdom to impart on the future cabinet. Gemma said, “My biggest piece of advice to the cabinet, and anyone in a leadership role, is to have the speech or ideas you ran on written done to have to reference when motivation, enthusiasm, or confidence might be lagging. Reviewing the speech or goals will help in those times of doubt and get you back on track! Remembering your passion will help you create your path!” Reina said, “Don’t blink, because your term will go by faster than you think,” Finally, Malova advised, “Don’t be afraid to ask for help from us old folk, we like staying in the loop even after we leave. Also Google Calendar is key to success and tracking everything you have to do.”
Finally, Tom wanted to add, “the last point I want to make is that our term is still far from over. We still have big goals for our term and lots of plans that we are strongly pushing to accomplish. Every time we start to feel a bit burnt out, I think we find a whole new set of ideas we are passionate about that light a new fire underneath us. We all strongly care about our positions because of all of the amazing students of Stevens, and want to accomplish as much as we possibly can before our term is up.” He also added that as usual, they implore any and all undergraduate students to reach out with any ideas, suggestions, and feedback. He added, “Senate meetings are every Sunday at 7 p.m., except for the first week of the month, when we are now having meetings during academic break! All students should feel welcome to come and have their voice heard at Senate meetings, or to email the cabinet at sga@stevens.edu!”
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