Student Government Association elects new executive council

Each year, UHCL elects a new president and three vice presidents that preside over the Student Government Association (SGA). It’s that time of the year again, and March 22, SGA representatives elected the 2016-2017 Fiscal Year Executive Council. The new council will take over May 15.

SGA is a student-elected government body that acts as a student advocate, represents the student vote at committee meetings and helps fund student organizations.

“[SGA is] the only way on our campus that we can get the opinions and the voices of the students out to the administrators and the faculty and staff as to what goes on on campus, and what students actually want done or problems or questions or concerns that they have,” said Robin Aleman, social work major and current president of SGA.

Meet your new SGA council members

President Elect: Bryan “AJ” Johnson is a graduate student majoring in business administration. AJ said he wanted to run for office to help students’ voices be heard, and looks forward to collaborating with students and serving them with conviction.

Vice President Elect of Committee Coordination: Sang Lu, biology major, decided to become involved at UHCL after transferring from UH main; seeing all of the student organizations and the rapid growth of UHCL as a college inspired him to leave his mark on campus.

Vice President Elect of Outreach and Communication: Diveanne Martinez is a pre-med major and orientation leader at UHCL. She is also an officer in the Pre-Health and Science Association and National Science Scholars Association. Diveanne said she decided to run for office to become more involved on campus and make a difference.

Vice President Elect of Administration: Amber Gross-Velez, criminology major, said she decided to run for office to become a part of UHCL’s growth and get involved in helping students and organizations. Amber has 10 years of experience in administration.

Q&A session with incoming council members

What do you want to change about SGA while in office?

AJ: While in office I would like to change the voting system. This is not only for executive positions but also for fund requests and so on. Every meeting that there is a fund request, SGA representatives must hold up their student organization name tag to vote for, against or abstain. Students can feel pressured when other organizations are asking for funds, and they see exactly which students are not in favor of their request. This must change. There needs to be a system that protects the anonymity of the SGA representatives. After all, SGA reps are individuals that are voting for the best interest of their entire student organization, not for themselves.

Sang: I want SGA to be known throughout the school. It’s already known by representatives and organizations, but to new students it’s not really well-known. We have meetings here [SSCB lecture hall] and in the Garden Room and students will pass by and say “What’s going on?” They don’t really know that they can come in and sit in meetings and learn about stuff going on on-campus. I want, if possible, to send an invitation at the beginning of the semester, mid semester and end of the semester.

Diveanne: I would like to have more volunteer opportunities for students who aren’t in organizations and have regular volunteering with specific organizations. For example, having a group of volunteers go to the Houston Food bank every first Saturday of the month, or something along those lines.

Amber: The thing that I want to change about SGA while I’m in office is getting more people involved. I know that’s something everybody says, but I feel like we do need to be more involved in SGA; we have to have people come to more meetings.

How do you plan to reach out to all students, not just those involved in student organizations?

AJ:  Flyers, information tables and SGA announcements only reach a small portion of students, so getting faculty involved will increase student awareness. That would be my goal for involvement as the next SGA President.

Sang: If emails don’t work, maybe you can bombard them when they walk in the building: “Hey, do you know what SGA is? No? Good, come with me, I’ll take you to this magical place.”

Diveanne: I plan to reach out to students through advertising the events around campus and making sure that they are in the know.

Amber: Doing events that draw attention to our campus, doing events that draw attention to SGA, and I think that one of the major ways to do that is to interact with people and let them know that we’re here. Posters tend to work sometimes, but sometimes they don’t. There’s a very targeted population that reads posters, but the age demographic on campus is a demographic that is more susceptible to visual images.