By Brittany Burke
Senator Elizabeth Braun has been chosen to serve as the interim vice president of the Student Government Association.
“I really want the position, not just the title,” said Braun in her opening speech. “I’ve read the stipend contract for the vice president over and over again and I love the responsibilities of the vice president and that is because I have a lot of qualifications that would push me toward being a very good vice president.”
With the resignation of Student Government Vice President Chris Kyle at the end of last semester, the first order of business at the opening SGA meeting was to nominate and vote upon his replacement.
Braun was one of four senators nominated for the position. Put on the ballot by Senator Drew Blythe, Braun was running against Senators Eric Bergenn and Ivonne Lopez. Blythe was also nominated, but chose to decline.
In her nomination speech Braun addressed her ideas to make improvements within the SGA, beginning with the club liaison program.
“I have crazy organization skills and I think that’s incredibly important for the vice president’s job because it involves keeping attendance, office hours and the club liaison program.”
“I’m really good at taking something that is flawed and improving it, that’s just kind of my thing,” said Braun. “I already have a lot of great plans for the club liaison program so it is more helpful for the clubs and for us so that the guidelines for them are all laid out so we know what we’re supposed to do, that way we can help the clubs better.”
As the new vice president she also plans to use her organizational skills to clarify the SGA stipend guidelines. Now that she has been promoted to a higher position of power Braun would like to make the guidelines easier to follow by laying out all of the rules so they know what to and what not to follow.
The vice president wasn’t the only position in need of being filled for the new semester. The SGA senators also needed to vote on a new finance co-chair, student life co-chair and elections chair.
Senator Justin Blaine was voted in as the new finance co-chair after running against Senator Nick Alaimo, despite the fact that Alaimo was not present at the meeting.
“I put a lot into finance, I work hard to try and get as much objective as we can and get as much work in as we can. I feel like I’d be fair to most of the clubs and again I’d like to keep working, working with everyone in the committee,” said Blaine.
The decision for the open position of student life co-chair was between Senators Ryan Baldassario and Evan Robbins. After Baldassario officially announced his resignation as elections co-chair he was able to accept the position of the new student life co-chair.
“I plan on helping the senator whenever I can, I want to be here next year which is why I’m stepping down in elections. I feel like working with Senator Bergenn and his committee we can get a lot of stuff done,” said Baldassario.
With Baldassario’s decision to step down from elections co-chair, fellow co-chair Blythe also stepped down and was then revoted in as elections chair. Senator Kerrie Rowe was nominated as Blythe’s election’s co-chair, filling Baldassario’s open position.
The new semester has brought upon a loss of a handful of other SGA senators. While not all of the official resignations have been handed in, the SGA is expecting to have between 29 and 30 senators.
