Polls for Loyola’s Student Government Association (SGA) elections open on Feb. 22. With changes being made to the election process, we spoke to SGA’s Chief Operating Officer, Mel Silberger ’24, to bring you everything you need to know.
When elections are and how to vote:
Election polls will open on Feb. 22 at 12 p.m. Polls will close on Friday, Feb. 24. at 2 p.m. Loyola students will be sent an email from SGA, which will include a link to the voting polls. It’s important to note that every student votes for “Big 2/3,” regardless of their class year, including graduating seniors.
The Candidates:
Candidates will be running for Class President positions, as well as Big 2/3 positions. The following is a list of all the candidates and the positions they are running for.
Sophomore Class President:
- Hailey Hardesty
- Kavon Burley
Junior Class President
- Kate McCormick (fall semester)
- Genna Quinn (spring semester)
- Patrick Turek (spring semester)
Senior Class President
- Andrew Cherry
- Clodagh Ryan
Big 2/3
- Alexa Junikiewicz and Remmi Shaw
- Lexi Faison, Weber DuVal, and Juliana Merlino
Changes to the election process:
In this upcoming election, Loyola is seeing some changes in possible student leader positions. The largest change comes with the SGA positions making up “The Big 3,” which is named “The Big 2 or The Big 3” for this election only. In past years, “The Big 3” has consisted of a Student Body President, a Vice President of Policy and Advocacy and a Vice President of Social Affairs.
In order to reorganize and recenter SGA, structural changes are being made, and going forward after this year, “The Big 2” will be the only option on the ticket. This consists of one Student Body President and one Student Body Vice President.
These roles are more like how a real government functions and the role of Student Body Vice President will replace the previous role of the Vice President of Policy and Advocacy. To fulfill the role previously known as Vice President of Social Affairs, an executive position, Director of Social Affairs, will be appointed.
Once again, this major change to SGA was created close to the election. Therefore, the 2023 SGA election allows both a “Big 3” and “Big 2” to have the opportunity to run for positions for this year only.
To learn more about the SGA elections, visit the Loyola Student Government Instagram, @loyolamdsga.
Featured Images Courtesy of the Loyola Student Government via Instagram.
