Juniors Becca Peach and Carter Haupt are the new president and vice president respectively of SGA for the 2019-2020 academic school year.
“Ever since I found out I have been oscillating wildly between being very excited about it and thinking, ‘What have I done,’” Peach said.
Peach knows the pressures the title of president brings, but she is excited about the challenge.
Peach has aspired to become the SGA president since the last SGA election when former President Victor Mweu ran unopposed.
“I felt like things could be done better after seeing how things were run,” Peach said.
Haupt expressed similar reasons for running with Peach.
“I knew this was something I was definitely interested in, because I had experience in SGA and had experience with different people on campus,” Haupt said. “I felt that I could do a good job and about Becca and how awesome she would be as a President.”
Peach found out about her victory in a very interesting way.
“The only spot I can get WiFi in my apartment is in the hallway between my bathroom and bedroom. It was 7 a.m. the day we were supposed to find out and I was sitting in the hallway waiting to get the email,” Peach said.
She was relieved that all her hard work and stress from the campaign trail had finally paid off.
“We’re campaigning so we’re talking to so many people and we have no idea whether or not they are going to vote for us. They may have heard something from the other candidates that they feel represents them better so it’s hard to really know,” Haupt said.
During their campaign trail, Peach and Haupt discussed many issues that they plan on addressing when they take office next school year.
“I think the first thing I want to do is work on relations with the Cultural Resource Center, and that’s because the worst thing that we could do is start off on a bad foot and I think that might be where we are,” Peach said. “I think that is very unfortunate because it’s something that I care about.”
Peach recognizes the importance of the CRC as a campus resource and will be holding a forum in the CRC on April 10 at 6 pm.
“I want an opportunity to apologize because I understand that certain things could have been done better, and I also want to clarify some of the things that I said,” Peach said. “I think half of the issue with what we said in Chapel was a misunderstanding on our part. The other half of the issue was a misunderstanding on what I was trying to say.”
Peach and Haupt are big advocates of a green campus.
“I’m really big on the environment. Partly because I care about the environment, and partly because there are just such simple things that we’re not doing. It’s not that hard to get recycling bins. These are such small things that we could easily be doing and we’re not,” Peach said.
She believes that student initiatives play a major role in getting these done.
Peach recognizes that this is extremely hard to do from the student position but can be accomplished with a supportive student government.
“I know those are very short-term solutions, but we want to continue Liam’s work with the LED lighting, because while that’s not necessarily something you see the solution of right away, it’s something that will be benefiting for a while even though it doesn’t seem immediate,” Haupt adds.
They believe with these small changes, there is a benefit for everyone on campus, even for those who do not particularly care about the environment.
Another component of change that Peach and Haupt are pushing is the expansion of the student center.
“We’ve been approached with a lot of different ideas from both Maggie Platt and other people about ways we could do that just by using the space that we have right now better and also how to increase the space,” Haupt said.
They believe that potentially moving the campus store to Decker could create more space for students.
At the end of their term, Peach and Haupt hope to be remembered for implementing substantive change on campus.
“While I was on the campaign trail, I was going around Morrison and Myers and a girl told me that my run for president made her want to be involved in SGA. I think that’s one thing that I hope for and I think that’s evidence that people are passionate about being involved, care about things they see on campus and know they can have a role in changing things.” Peach said.
They hope to see students becoming more involved in SGA in the coming year.
“I hope that a sense of involvement is represented in senate. We’ve never really had a very full senate,” Haupt said.
“We’ve had senators assuming multiple roles, but it would be nice to have more students in the senate so they can be representatives of this group of people, rather than having senators speak for multiple different people. This comes from a lot of action from us making people aware,” Haupt said.
Peach and Haupt hope to demonstrate that they are ready to take on their role as SGA executives head-on the upcoming academic school year.