By Kassondra Granata

As the only candidate in last year’s Student Government Association Presidential Election, Eric Bergenn looks to promote transparency and strengthen communication with the community in his new position.

“I’d like to be able to get everything out there and make sure that everything is carried out correctly and is available to the CCSU community,” Bergenn said.

After discussing ideas with SGA Vice President Liz Braun and Treasurer Nick Alaimo, their main objective is to reach out to the CCSU community for more feedback while raising awareness about campus issues.

One action Bergenn is taking in order to reach out to campus is the issuance of a biweekly newsletter. The newsletter will contain bullet points and short articles pertaining to reports on SGA and matters on campus in the hope of being more visible to the eyes of the student body.

“I don’t want to necessarily flood student’s mailboxes,” Bergenn said. “But at the same time I want to get all the info out there.”

Bergenn also has created a Facebook account along with a Twitter account to expand the networking that SGA can have with CCSU.

“We would encourage students to get in touch with us through both social networking sites, as well as our [email protected] email account, or by stopping in our office on the second floor of the student center.”

Another option Bergenn wants to take is make sure that the community can be more “in touch” with SGA when necessary.

Bergenn is hoping to move “open floor time,” a time during the Senate meetings to discuss important matters, to the beginning of the meeting in order to make it more convenient to students and the community who would like to share input or ask questions.

“How we respond to these different modes of communication will depend on the amount of feedback we receive. We do plan to make an effort to respond personally to everyone who reaches out to us,” said Bergenn.

In mid-August, the Senate met together in Rocky Hill for a retreat to discuss matters and familiarize themselves with the operation of student government.

“It went really well,” Bergenn said. “People new to the [SGA] Senate got a good hold on how we operate and we got a lot accomplished.” Bergenn said the Senate went over procedures and finance and made a few changed in their organization of committees. Instead of those volunteering for committees, the Senate decided to assign members to committees, hoping to have an equal amount of people in each group.

Last year, many clubs, such as hockey and lacrosse, believed that the amount of money distributed to their budget was unfair. Many SGA Senators received negative feedback following the distribution of funds, so the organization plans to discuss ways of remedying the situation this year. One possible solution would be the creation of a separate fund for club sports similar to the way CCSU’s media board is funded.

“There are a lot of ideas out there, and I want to see it change this year.” Bergenn said. “If this is accomplished, clubs would have more control over their budgets.”

Nick Alaimo, treasurer of the Student Government Association, also believed that a change should be made when it comes to club funding. Alaimo agreed with the idea of making club sports have its own independent funding.

“It’s a tough thing to do, but I’m hoping to make this work.” Alaimo said. “Every club should be funded fairly; we definitely have numbers to play around with.”

Freshman elections for four senate positions are being held September 20-21 for those who are interested in joining the student government community.