SGA President Chuck Mahone talks completion of policy points, SGA history
As president of the Student Government Association, Detroit senior Chuck Mahone serves as the bridge between the student body and administration. Serving for the past two terms, Mahone has worked diligently with SGA and others on campus to accomplish policy points that he and Vice President Maggie Blackmer outlined during campaign season last year.
Still, Mahone feels that students however still do not fully grasp his role on campus. In an effort to clear the air, Mahone sat down with CM Life to talk about what it means to be president, what his policy points for the year are and where he will go from here.
You’re currently SGA president, and have been since your junior year. When did you get involved in SGA?
When I came here for orientation, I don’t know what it was but I knew that I wanted to be student body president and represent the students here. I had some experience doing it in high school where I was student body president there, but obviously that’s nothing like on a collegiate level. It wasn’t until I went to Leadership Safari, and the SGA president always addresses students at Leadership Safari, and once I was able to get that visual of who the (president) was and actually what (being president) looked like, that’s what sent me on the path.
What was your motivation for running for president?
I believe it’s the same thing that makes me want to go into politics now: that (I) get to represent those who either can’t or don’t have the ability to represent themselves. It’s a very powerful thing to get to advocate on behalf of your peers.
Quite a few presidents have attempted to run for office twice while only three presidents have succeeded, including you. How did you make it happen?
If you’re familiar with the term “political capital,” that’s something that definitely came into play. Because I ran (and was elected) for my first term, because I was the first black president we had here, because I did win with such a large margin as I had been talking about this since my freshman year so everyone was waiting to vote for me – as Mariah (Urueta) and I were both very well known people on campus – we had a lot of political capital coming our way.
Whenever we put our mind to something, it happened very quickly. Now because people are used to my face and the things I do, and ultimately I get things done, it’s not as much of a kneejerk reaction to (wondering if) I’m going to get things done. When it comes to getting things done, we do it, which is why all of our platform points are already done.
What were your platform points?
Longer library hours, bigger desks in classrooms and an increase in the overall Campus Programing Fund. Everything we ran on last year has been completed.
Why so quickly?
The president who I ran against (my first time) was Marie Reimers and her slogan was “momentum.” My thing was, how can you run for a second term of representing all the students here if you didn’t even do what you said you were going to do initially?
I remember the platform points she said she was going to do, and she completed none of them. Not a single one. And she wasn’t the only one. The president before her didn’t complete (most) of their policy points and neither did the president before them, or the president my freshman year. That’s a trend we have seen in SGA of people promising things that sound great but they know they actually can’t do, or things they can do but just don’t put their mind to getting it done.
I made sure that if I was going to run again, I was going to get my platform points done. But not only that, once (my policy points) were completed, then I would start to take up things students (raised concerns) on.
What are your plans then for the rest of the year?
Since we’ve been very proactive, using the summer to our advantage to make things possible, that gives us (now) the opportunity to really delve into the student body and see what they want us to work on.
Last year we got done with our platform points by December and definitely found things to occupy ourselves with for the rest of (the year). I think it will be the same thing this year. We like to look (retroactively) at things that students are consistently promised and work from there.
Is there anything you think the student body needs to know about you?
I don’t think I’m as important, as I think that students need to know about the (SGA) office. I think they need to know that they have a student body president and that they have someone they can go to with their concerns and questions. Even if you don’t know what you need or who to go to, (SGA) can point you in the right direction. The office is what they need to know about. Know that you have a president, know what SGA is, because when it comes down to it we’re the only group on campus that has that power to create an administrative change on (a permanent) level. We’re the only ones that are really plugged into the university.
