SGA to unveil 'something big' at end of February


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Student Government Association President Chuck Mahone speaks at the SGA meeting Monday, Jan. 26, 2015 in Pearce hall.

The graduation of members in the Student Government Administration Senate, nearly half of the seats are available for any student to run for. The opportunity is also open to students not a part of SGA.

Students interested in running must contact either SGA President Mahone, SGA Vice President Maggie Blackmer or Senate Leader Rebecca Detroyer prior to running for a Senator position to add their name to the ballot. From there, the student must give a speech before the House detailing why they are qualified for the Senator position.

Detroyer is optimistic the election will bring in new talent to the organization.

"I'm hoping for a lot of new passionate Senators, and looking forward to the ones who are returning from next semester continuing on the projects they have been working on," she said. "Many (current) Senators are in the process of writing legislation, so hopefully we will see that coming up very quickly as the semester opens up."

The deadline to apply for a senator position is Jan. 25.

A senator's job is to advocate for students enrolled in an academic college on campus.

"If you were to be a Senator for the College of Communication and Fine Arts then you would be responsible for representing those students," Mahone said. "You'd need to work on projects that either directly benefit those students or somehow benefit CMU's campus as a whole."

General board elections will be held at 8 p.m. Jan. 25 in Anspach 162. The change in location from the Bovee University Center auditorium to Anspach Hall comes as the result of renovations scheduled to be done to the auditorium this semester.

Despite losing half the Senate, Mahone maintains a positive attitude regarding the end of his presidency. He said what gives him an advantage over past SGA presidents is his experience.

"Although we had a lot of new leadership (this semester), we had many returning faces," Mahone said. "It helped that people weren't trying to figure out how to do their roles, but already knew them. This allowed us to start off (the fall semester) a lot stronger, getting things done more quickly and smoothly."

However Mahone did allude to a fear of being "stagnant," in terms of not passing legislation or being in touch with the campus community as a big issue during the fall semester.

He credited the addition of Vice President Blackmer as well as new leadership in Executive Council as a way to combat a lack of activity.

"It's rare to have a(n SGA) president who comes back (for a second term) so I didn't want us to fall into any types of ruts," Mahone said.

To avoid the "rut," Mahone said there are plans to host a campus-wide event at the end of February.

"We haven't announced it yet, but there will be hosting a big event that we hope can somewhat bring the student body together and raise awareness for certain issues," Mahone said. "We're still working on it."

The cryptic awareness-raising comes from an "internal initiative," Mahone said, and he hopes that after this event is announced, students will be able to "use (what they learn from this) in the future."

Mahone said because of his platform points either being "accomplished or in the process of being so," SGA does not have any set goals for the semester outside of the "big project" the administration is working on.

"(SGA hopes) to continue to represent students to the best of our ability and will determine our (semester's) agenda based off of their concerns," he said.

SGA's first meeting will be held at 8 p.m. on Jan. 25 in Anspach 162, the same day as elections.

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Troy senior Jordyn Hermani, Editor-in-Chief of Central Michigan Life, is a double major ...

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