According to accounts on social media, Mackenzie Goaneh has won the race for SGA president.
The sophomore public relations chair and former freshman representative won over Amara Foster, the current secretary and former freshman representative. The two were the only students running for any of SGA’s elected positions.
SGA has yet to make an official announcement regarding the election.
Voting was officially open Nov. 19-25. The voting period fell over the College’s Thanksgiving holiday, leaving just two full days students were on campus to vote via OrgSync. The online form, however, is still open to receive unlimited votes per user.
Goaneh ran because she thought she had what it takes to understand how the SGA executive board functions, being a current member of it. She also wrote of connecting SGA with other organizations on campus in our Meet the Candidates guide.
“I can really make SGA more big than what it is,” she wrote in the Nov. 13 article.
Goaneh will be the first president since 2016 to be elected by the student body. In April of 2016, Alexaundria Leonard won an election that featured candidates for president, vice president, and treasurer, of which the latter two were absent from this year’s election. Ashly Nsangou was elected by an internal SGA vote at the end of the spring 2017 semester as the only person running for the position.
Goaneh inherits a role that has largely been forgotten among campus life. Outside of student-oriented Homecoming festivities, the only major role SGA has had on campus in the last few years has been annual student organization financial allocations.
But Goaneh believes she has what it takes to run SGA to represent the student body.
“I see SGA as the bridge between the administration and the students,” she wrote in our Nov. 13 article, “and I would like to make that bridge stronger, so students could be more comfortable coming to SGA. I think we can just PR more honestly and do what we have promised to organizations.”
Goaneh already has some plans for her presidency, which runs for the 2019 calendar year, a shift from the academic year term that SGA previously operated under until Nsangou extended her term a full semester into this fall.
“Within the first month of school, I want to have a kickoff to the new school year SGA party to really market to the Class of 2023,” she wrote. “Then I would want to have a lot of co-sponsorships with many organizations. I would also want to build our professional relationship with the organizations we oversee, as SGA is more than having fun parties.”
She has yet to outline plans for the spring, her first semester in office.
Foster ran a campaign which highlighted listening to and representing the student body.
“[I want] to make students feel like they can come up to me and express their concerns, issues, and even events they would like to,” she wrote.
Foster also had plans to run more events through SGA outside of Spring Fling and Homecoming.
“I want to add more events during the year and make SGA more known,” she said.
Nsangou could not be reached for immediate comment about the election.
