Two teams announce run for SGA executive positions

Two teams announced their plans to run for the Student Government Association executive positions during Tuesday night’s meeting.

Teagan McNary and Josh Anderson will be running against Sadie Swier and Lucas Lund for the next presidential and vice presidential positions in SGA.

McNary said she believes she and her running mate have a lot of great ideas to help improve USD’s campus.

“In the position of president and vice president, you have a lot of power to help make changes,” she said. “I think now would be a very great time to do so.”

Anderson said he wants to engage students on campus more effectively.

“We want to get people more involved with organizations and events,” he said. “When events happen on campus, the attendance is often lacking.”

Swier said she hopes to change the image of SGA and have every student know what the organization does.

“Most people think it’s a fraternity and I would like to see more involvement from them,” she said.

Swier’s running mate, Lund, said he wants to solicit feedback from students.

“Our campaign wants to get SGA back to basics, with more input from the student organizations and their members,” Lund said.

Other agenda items

In addition to announcing executive teams, eight new at-large senators were sworn in at Tuesday night’s meeting: first-years Sebastian Moore and Talita Fantauzzi; sophomores Rodrigo Balmaceda, Parker Schultz, Diedra Gatzke and Jace Jerome; junior Michael Li and senior Chandra Karki.

Senators also discussed how to best allocate the new budget increases from the General Activity Fee, approved by students almost two years ago.

Senator and student-athlete Josh Sorbe defended the increase, citing the amount of awareness the athletics department produces for USD.

“…The athletes themselves are not the ones benefitting from that number. What’s benefitting is the university,” Sorbe said during the meeting. “Because, I’m sorry, like Coyote Communication, USD Speech and Debate – the return-on-investment that those organizations have is not near as close as what the athletic’s return-on-investment will ever be…”

A student in the audience voiced concerns about most of the increase going towards athletics, while student-athletes represent only a small amount of USD’s student population.

Sorbe compared the budget issue to on campus buildings.

“The MUC and library get the most traffic, so they should get the most money,” Sorbe said. “Other buildings don’t see as much traffic, so there’s no reason they should have the same budget.”

The issue was tabled for next week’s meeting.

SGA also proclaimed USD “a community of tolerance, and we resolve to stand together with all as our institution to promote acceptance and promote the right to equity” through resolution No. 17.

 *** An earlier version of this story misquoted senator Josh Sorbe. The Volante regrets the error.