By Joshua Robison / The Jambar
The Youngstown State University Student Government Association is in the first stages of its election process, as the declaration of candidacy for president, executive vice president and academic senators closed Feb. 19.
SGA candidates will begin campaigning March 9, a public debate will be held March 18 and then elections will be held April 1-2. Time and locations have not yet been determined.
SGA consists of four different committees, including the Financial Affairs Committee, Public Relations Committee, Student Life Committee and Assessment and Enrichment Committee.
Sofie Myers, senior political science major and SGA president, has served in SGA for four years and said holding elections is important for building leadership skills for students.
“It’s a really good way to engage students with leadership positions on campus,” Myers said. “Being in student government is the best way on campus, I would say, to represent your peers and get involved with a group of students.”
Myers said students within the four committees can work their way up to leadership positions.
“There’s a lot of leadership opportunities. Even if you are joining as a freshman, you can still get involved with your committee. You hold a position in that committee, [and] you can run for a higher position next year,” Myers said.
While the president, executive vice president and academic senators are up for election, freshman representatives must go through an interview process.
“As a freshman representative, you come in and apply, and then there’s an interview process that you have to go through. You interview with the executive officers, and then you’re alerted if you get one of the three freshman representative seats,” Myers said.
Student representatives in SGA work to come up with a solution for issues that arise on campus.
“The representatives have a really unique position where they’re able to bring up problems to the [Executive Committee] and have us work towards a solution for them,” Myers said.
Myers said that with SGA being a university department, allocating funds to student organizations and holding various events on campus makes the association important to YSU’s functionality.
“We’re very unique in the fact that we’re not just a student organization, but we’re also [a] university department, which is why we are able to have the budget that we have to allocate to student groups,” Myers said. “We kind of keep everything functioning behind the scenes so that all of the student groups that you see going to all these conferences or holding these big events wouldn’t be possible without the SGA.”
Those interested in learning more about SGA, its committees and election can contact Myers at simyers@student.ysu.edu or visit the SGA website.