Last Thursday was the first Student Government Association meeting of the 2017-2018 academic year. The executive board will be seeing some changes from its members elected at the end of last semester.
In April, seniors Haylei John and Michael O’Malley were elected president and vice president respectively by the student body. They were to be joined by junior Deepak Ayer as treasurer and sophomore Hamaad Kahn as secretary.
John contacted members of SGA in July to “maintain an informative, supportive, and transparent community.” The executive board had received a letter of resignation from O’Malley.
Article XIV, Section 3 of the SGA Constitution discusses the protocol for filling vacancies. The judicial board is consulted whenever an issue regarding interpretation of the constitution arises. With the help of Chief Justice Keegan Miller, the executive board created a solution to filling this vacant position, which was confirmed by a two-thirds majority of the student senate.
The motion proposed appointed the current Executive Board Secretary, Khan, to the vice president position. Geoffrey Broadbent, a senator at large, would then be appointed to the secretary position. Broadbent ran for secretary in the last SGA election and finished second to Khan.
“I feel that the reappointment was the proper decision for the executive board to make in our situation,” Khan said. “We definitely wanted to make a resolution that would benefit all of SGA and the reappointment process was the ideal scenario. I am very thrilled with our executive board and cannot wait for SGA go above and beyond the progress we’ve made already.”
John cited the dedication and hard work of both Khan and Broadbent in their previous roles in SGA as rationale for their appointment to new roles.
With these new roles and members come new hopes for the year.
“My greatest hope for this year is to work with everyone to create an exciting and supportive SGA community,” said John.
She said her plan is to focus on providing support for clubs and creating campus events that will engage more of the Bonaventure community. John said she is already looking to expand SGA’s involvement in service activities and encouraging SGA to participate in more than one campus charity throughout the year.
“This community of support and involvement has to begin with having that type of environment within SGA,” said John. This requires collaboration, and above all the positive, dynamic energy that I know all of our student leaders exhibit.”
Kahn was inspired by last year’s executive board and echoed John’s sentiments with his commitment to the interests of the student body.
“I ran for the SGA Executive Board because of the impact that last year’s exec board made, both with me and with the entire student body,” said Kahn. “I watched them voice the students’ opinions to faculty under intense pressure and work diligently to ensure that the entire student body was represented and heard.”
Khan desired to represent his peers to “make our time on campus as exciting as possible.” Khan said SGA gave him those opportunities in his first year at St. Bonaventure and he wanted to continue working with students of all years and educational fields to bring more good to the university.
killenmk15@bonaventure.edu
