Junior Marlon Figueroa was named Student Government Association president Wednesday along with sophomore Jackie Wheeler as vice president, Chase Bruton as treasurer and Alex Collins as Programming Council chair.
“I was nervous up until the very last minute because all eight of us who ran for elections are great people and very qualified,” Figueroa said. “But I am so excited to be president because I put my whole heart into it.”
Figueroa said he would like to meet with campus administration to see if the ideas he publicized during his campaign, like campus communicator, an instant messaging-style chat feature for students to use during their professor’s office hours, and opening certain parking lots to students after 5 p.m. would be feasible to implement in the next year. A dedicated member of Figueroa’s campaign staff, Jack Wright, a freshman English major, said he campaigned for Figueroa in and out of the Mary Couts Burnett Library, the Brown-Lupton University Union and Clark Hall for seven hours Tuesday. Wright said he felt like his hard work had paid off.
Garyn Goldston, sophomore strategic communication major and SGA’s election and committee regulation chair, said 30 percent of the campus voted during the SGA election, compared to the 40 percent who voted last year. Goldston said he thought the decrease of student votes happened because of the excitement of this week’s home game against Utah and ESPN’s College GameDay coming to campus.
Current student body president Kelsie Johnson, a senior strategic communication major, said she thought that some attention was taken away from SGA elections because of GameDay. However, Johnson said she was proud of the way all the campaigns were run and she was especially proud of those who are about to start a new term.
Total votes for Student Government Association election:
President:
Marlon Figueroa 1,315
Andrew Pulliam 788
Vice President:
Jackie Wheeler 1,388
Kendal Rader 726
Treasurer:
Chase Bruton 1,074
Blake Asjes 956
Programming Chair:
Alex Collins 1,166
Kennedy Stewart 979
