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Molla and Castellanos win SGA election

This November, Samantha Molla and Adrian Castellanos were elected as President and Vice President of Operations by the student body. Soon after the election, the Molla administration selected the members of their cabinet, with Hailey Tanner as the new Vice President of Student Interests, Christian Bonavita as the Vice President of Finance, Andrea Maria Diaz-Gonzalez as Secretary, and Anthony Tesori as the Vice President of Academic Affairs.

The election results show Molla and Castellanos in the lead with 343 votes, E.J. Hannah and Jason Buckman with 290 votes, and Brandon Seidman and Simon Pepa with 110 votes.

Jason Chlus and Ryan Tom transfer power early next spring. According to the Student Government Association (SGA) constitution, “The President and Cabinet shall assume office at 1:00 PM EST on the first Wednesday of classes of the spring semester following the Presidential election.” However, according to Castellanos, the cabinet has already begun sitting in on meetings with their current counterparts in order to get adjusted to the positions and prepare them to take on those positions in full.

The Molla administration hopes to improve life at Stevens by improving the campus atmosphere, creating a smoke-free campus, helping to improve the scheduling process, improving sustainability on campus, and more. Their motto is “Lifting student voices through empowerment and creating a home for all.”

For this administration, the election was a learning experience. According to Castellanos, “I feel the campaigning process was an eye opening one. I met so many students and learned so much not just about myself, but about Sam, Stevens, and so many individuals on Campus that I probably otherwise wouldn’t have.”

Moving forward, Castellanos wants to ensure that the SGA is running as smoothly as possible, stating, “as the Vice President of Operations I will be doing a lot of internal work. My main goal for the SGA internally is to work with senators and committee chairs to better understand their needs and be able to help them succeed. Also I generally want to make the SGA more of a family so we can work together better, and students will be more willing to approach us with problems and concerns so we can handle those on their behalves the way we are meant to.”

Tesori also hopes to make progress on campus as the Vice President of Academic Affairs (VPAA) by improving the co-op program. “My plans moving forward as VPAA include finishing a lot of the work that Alex [Reina] and Marianna [Flemming] worked towards in previous years. Academics move a lot more slowly than other positions on the cabinet, but I have initiatives that I want to bring up because of my own personal experiences at Stevens as a co-op student who is getting a CAL minor. I want to work with the co-op office and implement a system to gather feedback from co-op students to gauge how well their schedules are working for them. I personally find my co-op schedule to work well, but I have met other students who didn’t feel the same way about theirs; I want to gauge how widespread these issues are across other majors.”

For those interested, the inauguration ceremony takes place on January 22 at 9 p.m. in Babbio Atrium, and everyone is welcome to attend.

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