My first real election was during my sophomore year of high school. It was for a class officer position and I lost. However, I stayed involved and was able to find that my real passion was Student Council. Throughout high school, I worked on many committees and made tons of connections. Because of that hard work, I was elected to be Vice President of Student Council my senior year. I was also elected as Senior Class Treasurer, which was an exciting surprise. Through campaigning and going through the election process, I learned that the final vote never really meant the end. I discovered that sometimes the path that I didn’t originally intend on taking was actually the perfect one for me. After arriving at Marist, I dove straight into elections for Freshman Class President. I worked really hard for that campaign and I met some amazing people. I lost that election, but found my way to the SGA Senate anyways, through an open Resident Senator spot. Six months later, elections were here again. The big topic that everyone at Marist has been talking about has been Student Government elections. Every year, the Student Government Association holds elections for the upcoming Senate, class boards, and the position of Student Body President.
This year, Student Government elections made history with voter participation at Marist. According to Bryan Terry with Marist In Progress (@SGAinProgress), 1,645 Marist students voted in the election, which comes to 36.33% of the student body, the biggest percentage to vote in Marist history. This beat the goal of the elections commission, which was 35%. Voting for the SGA elections took place for 2 ½ days, Monday (Feb. 27) at 8:00 a.m.- Wednesday (Feb. 29) at 3:00 p.m. The results were presented after a Town Hall meeting in the Cabaret on February 29, with a large crowd as an audience. Here are your 2012-2013 Marist SGA members:
Class of 2015
Historian
Sarah Gaudio
Secretary
Carolyn Bugbee
Treasurer
Ignacio Andres Borbolla
Vice President
Ryan Ellman
President
Giananthony Damasco
Class of 2014
Historian
Hilary Wiggins
Secretary
Diana Dubs
Treasurer
Alexandra Makowski
Vice President
Dillon Orr
President
Deborah Akinwunmi
Class of 2013
Historian
Kevin Manning
Secretary
Aimee Beltramini
Treasurer
Kevin Hunker
Vice President
Alexandra Cavaliere
President
Nicholas Homler
Commuter Senator
Justin Pupa
Zain Qayyum
Resident Senator
Samantha DeVito
Courtney Lawlor
Atiq Lucas
Garrin Marchetti
Jane Tracy
Student Body President
Paul DiBlasi
I would like to thank everyone who took time out of their day to make their voice heard and voted in the 2012 SGA elections. If you are interested in becoming a part of the SGA team, please stop by the SGA Office on the 3rd floor of the Student Center and get some more information. Thank you, especially, to our current Student Body President, Andrew Paulsen, for all of the work that he does with Student Government. As he would say, “God bless, and GO RED FOXES!”
–Courtney Lawlor
@ce_lawl