Poska and Georgoutsos running unopposed on SGA Presidential ticket

The voting portal for Student Government Association (SGA) Presidential elections is currently open, with one pair of undergraduate students running. Gabriella Poska is running for President alongside Panagiota (Paulina) Georgoutsos who is running for Vice President of Operations (VPO). The form for votes will close on Sunday, November 22 at 11:59 p.m., and the winners will be announced at the following Senate meeting. While the pair is running unopposed, there is an option for voters to abstain. The only requirement for candidates to win is for a simple majority to declare them the winners.

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In an email interview with The Stute, Poska and Georgoutsos described what motivated them to run and what they plan to accomplish.

Q1: What is the first order of business you plan to do when you are elected as President?

Poska explained her first goal to mark as completed is “work on an update to our governing documents to include a Code of Ethics and Inclusivity Statement.”

She went on to state, “I think as org leaders we should hold ourselves to a bit of a higher standard. This is something we spoke about during Restructure and in my opinion, it was one of the most important aspects of our new Constitution. We worked diligently on the Code of Ethics we had written and consulted many members of administration as well as student governments at other universities with a similar structure to ours to better understand how their Code of Ethics serves them and understand how we can best implement something similar.”

Q2: How do you plan to use your role as a liaison between the cabinet and the senate, as VPO?

Georgoutsos stated she wants to “create a closer and more transparent connection between the cabinet and the senate, help senators have a smoother transition into the SGA, and I want to truly take the time to get to know the senators and help them find an initiative they are very passionate about. The student government works best when the members involved are passionate, so I want to take the time to help the senators (especially the new ones) find their passion. Finally, I want to increase involvement from the general student body by receiving clear feedback from the student body and relaying to the senate and admin.”

Q3: What are the top three things you hope to accomplish in both of your positions?

Poska: “The top three things I hope to accomplish are: [1] SGA creating a larger impact on the Stevens and Hoboken community as a whole, [2] encouraging more diversity of students within the SGA, and [3] mental health advancements.” 

Georgoutsos: “The top three things I hope to accomplish are [1] helping senators have a smoother transition into the student government and to truly help them find their passions in order to pursue effective initiatives, [2] gain more community engagement (outreach in the Hoboken community, special needs community is a big focus) and [3] increase the visibility of the student government along campus to create a closer connection to the student body.”

To create a larger impact on the Stevens and Hoboken community, Poska elaborated that she’d like to have a “student vs. faculty game toward the end of the semester […] There is a lot of disconnect between students and faculty/staff/administration and many make an attempt to meet with any students willing to meet with them. Having everyone in the same room for a lighthearted event before finals would definitely help to develop a relationship and familiarize students with faculty/staff/administration that they will see on campus for several years. Additionally, many other universities host Special Olympics or similar events and I think we can start to grow that outreach with the Hoboken community and host things like Special Olympics or Easter egg hunts.”

To encourage more diversity of students to join the SGA, Poska detailed that “this semester, we have been dealing with a lot of commuter student concerns. We currently only have one commuter in our senate (who joined just a few weeks ago) so it is hard to understand what commuter students need. This is just an example, but generally, we support the entire student body and in order to do so we need to understand everyone’s individual needs. Right now, we are having a lot of discussions regarding Res Life and Dining and having RAs in our senate really helps us understand both sides of the situation as well as helps us understand how to best address the situation.” 

To work on mental health advancements, Poska stated “there was definitely a period during senate meetings this semester when everyone was clearly burnt out. As a senate, we function on ideas and conversation so lively meetings are the most beneficial. I would like to work to institute a Mental Health Awareness Week that would start on a Sunday to give senators a break from SGA and be followed by events each day to truly release the stigma around mental health on campus and allow students time to relax in a stressful time (likely during midterms). Mental health awareness is something I am generally very passionate about and there are many related initiatives I would like to see through on campus.”

Q4: Do you plan to continue past restructuring efforts within the SGA?

Poska stated she does “plan to continue past restructuring efforts in some capacity […] I do think that there are a lot of internal changes we can make to better understand internally how we function best for the general student body before we make any additional major changes to our structure. I also think that since we have a very new group of students, it’s important to have another conversation with everyone in the SGA as well as anyone in the student body interested to understand what we want to change and why.”

Agreeing with Poska, Georgoutsos explained, “The past Cabinet did a really nice job of setting up this upcoming Cabinet even without the restructure so though not our main priority, we definitely want to focus on continuing to improve the SGA internally before we move to continue restructure efforts.”

Q5: Do you plan or want to try getting the re-written constitution passed again, with another student body vote? 

Poska explained that “we do plan on making amendments to the constitution, but in no means do we plan on taking that old referendum that did not pass and just trying to pass it again […] generally the SGA does need a new structure, but I don’t think the new one we wanted to pass last year is the right one for us. It seems that most of campus is in agreement with that at the very least.”

Q6: How do you plan to increase student involvement with the SGA?

Poska explained she wants to “work with IT to generate a website similar to that of other student governments to highlight the initiatives that have gone through the SGA and highlight a timeline for it all. Also, moving our office to the new University Towers will help since it will be in a more central location. Once that happens, I plan on putting several suggestion boxes across campus. I have had more luck with students anonymously expressing what they needs to be changed on campus than sending an email. Question booths have also had proven success so I am hoping to just make the SGA more visible on campus, show the successes of the SGA over the past few years, and express how just any student can make an impact on campus.”

Georgoutsos expressed she wants to “create feedback forms and events that are aimed to receiving more input from the student body. The student government has done many great things for the student body however these initiatives are not always publicized and often it feels as though the student body does not realize they can come to the student government as a resource. At the end of the day, we joined SGA to help the student body and without input from them there is an extreme disconnect and it can be difficult to know what the student body wants to see accomplished.”

Q7: What are some current shortcomings of the SGA that you hope to fix?

The most prominent shortcoming that Poska notices “is definitely the lack of interest and knowledge about the SGA […] there has definitely been some difficulty in pursuing new initiatives over the past few semesters. Most of this I believe is due to being away from campus for so long. I have a lot of ideas that I would like to see happen on campus and after speaking with many new senators, I know what they are most passionate about on campus and would love to see them take a vague idea and turn it into something much greater than I ever could have imagined.”

Georgoutsos noted some current shortcomings of the SGA that she hopes to fix, including “our [SGA] lack of visibility on campus and overall knowledge of the student government. I think as a student government we could do a better job of highlighting all the positive things we are doing on campus […] I want to help better transition new senators into the student government because often there is a bit of a lag when new senators enter the student government mainly because they are unsure of where to begin in terms of initiatives; from there, I want to make sure that the senators are fully putting their ideas into action.”