With the spring semester more than halfway through, the NVU-Lyndon student body has begun voting for the next Student Government Association executive board and elected representatives. The polls close at the end of the day. NVU-Lyndon students may access the ballot at this link by logging into their VSC accounts.
Petitions to run for these positions were due in late March, but no candidate was able to receive the required number of signatures to appear on the ballot. Like last semester, candidates interested in certain positions are listed under each role but must be written in by voters.
An open forum was held on March 25 for the interested parties to plead their cases. Only The Critic’s reporter was in attendance aside from SGA Advisor Mike Secreti and the candidates. Secreti asked the candidates questions about why they thought they were qualified for their respective positions, what issues they would like to address as part of the SGA next year, and how they will increase the diversity of student involvement, among other things. The forum was recorded and posted to the SGA’s Facebook page.
SGA President
The SGA President is the official spokesperson of the SGA and student body at NVU-Lyndon. In their role, the president is expected to meet with NVU President Elaine Collins and NVU Dean of Students Jonathan Davis monthly. The SGA President must host three Town Hall events per semester and is required to hold five office hours per week, like every other SGA Executive Board member.
NVU-Lyndon third-year Gill Macdonald is seeking reelection for this position uncontested. Macdonald is studying Psychology and Special Education at NVU-Lyndon and is originally from Cranston, Rhode Island. She is also involved in The Critic, Kingdom Autism and Behaviorial Health, and works at Everybuddy’s Casual Dining as a waitress downtown.
In her time as SGA President, Macdonald has worked with her Executive Board made up of Kaitlin Flannigan and Renee Chaples to pass a draft resolution in the fall addressing the need for students to have a break from classes. Though draft resolutions have no constitutional power, they show NVU and VSCS administration the united student opinion. Thus, NVU students were granted a two-day break during both semesters of this academic year. While Macdonald does not foresee any other issues requiring draft resolutions in the near future, she will continue to stand by the student body in fighting for graduation traditions, student involvement, and more.
“Everyone is just there to provide each other with a helping hand… [NVU-Lyndon] is honestly the most supportive community I’ve ever been a part of and it feels like a family.” -Gill Macdonald
If reelected, Macdonald hopes to continue projects currently in the works and work more closely with the Campus Activities Board to address the issue of student involvement. Her end goal for the past year was to implement a new program to support students’ mental health, and she wants to continue that behind-the-scenes work to finish that project. “By the time I graduate, something with student mental health will be completed,” she promised
SGA Executive Vice President
The Student Government Executive Vice President serves to chair the planning for large SGA sanctioned events like Spring Day and the various involvement fairs throughout the academic year. The Executive Vice is next in line for presidency should the President be impeached or resign during the regular term.
Katie Flannigan, a second-year Broadcast & Digital Journalism and Psychology double-major, is looking to return to the position. She also serves on The Critic’s Executive Board as the Treasurer. Flannigan is from Peabody, Massachusetts and also has experience working on-campus as an RA in the Wheelock residence hall and in her home community as a hostess and busser. She hopes to address concerns of student involvement and mental health by serving on the SGA once again.
Flannigan also sees a major divide between the two NVU campuses and wants that to be addressed over the next year. Per her work with The Critic, she’s been interviewing soon-to-be graduates of NVU-Lyndon, who have been outspoken about keeping beloved Lyndon traditions alive such as graduation hoods and LSC commemorative diplomas, both of which the Student Government has to fight for in the previous months. “I feel like ‘two campuses under one school’ is something we really should get back to if our next merger is–hopefully–going to be successful,” she said.
“After doing some interviews with some other seniors… I think it’s really interesting how many things our Lyndon campus let go compared to how many things the Johnson campus let go. I definitely feel like we lost more of our identity with the [NVU] merger.” -Kaitlin Flannigan
To Flannigan, the Student Government is supposed to be a resource to the student body, encouraging them to come forward with problems they may have. “No problem is too small for the SGA,” she said. Flannigan hopes that moving forward, the SGA can rekindle some of its connections with the student body so that administration can be made aware of issues on-campus, and so that administration may use the SGA as a resources to get important messages out to the students.
SGA Financial Controller
The Student Government’s Financial Controller serves as the financial administrator for all SGA-affiliated clubs and organizations. They are in charge of providing breakdowns of the budget allocations for the entire year and updates to the SGA’s General Fund, as well as the 49900 Student Activities Account that has been debated for the past two years. The Financial Controller audits all clubs’ accounts randomly and regularly meets with NVU’s Financial Controller.
Third-year Patrick Wickstrom served as the Financial Controller in the 2019-2020 academic year. He’s been involved on-campus in other ways over the past few years, including working at the Gravity Well, being an RA, playing men’s tennis, and serving as the AMS club’s Treasurer. Wickstrom headed the viral petition last spring against the idea of closing NVU and Vermont Technical College in Randolph, and served as a student representative on the NVU Strong Advisory Committee. He is also currently serving as a student representative on the Learning and Working Sterring Committee. Wickstrom, originally from Mansfield, Texas, is studying Atmospheric Sciences and Climate Change Science at NVU-Lyndon.
Wickstrom has been remote for the past academic year and admits to missing the people at NVU-Lyndon. He wants to reconnect with the student body by returning to the SGA Executive Board. As Financial Controller, he wants to complete multiple audits to ensure the budget is accurate and up-to-date, something that previously led him to discover the 49900 Student Activities Account.
“I want to really drive home and finish the work I started two years ago… really focusing on expanding the student voice on-campus.” -Patrick Wickstrom
Wickstrom wants to create a revitalization plan to help the student body come out of the COVID-19 pandemic feeling supported and excited to be at NVU-Lyndon. He wants to put extra money that the SGA has into bringing campus back to life and work with clubs to make sure they have the resources they need to support this effort. Through this and increased communication between the NVU administration and the student body, Wickstrom hopes it to be one of the first steps to solving the lack of student involvement.
Third-year Jesse Munroe is also vying for the position of Financial Controller. He is studying Business Administration and Accounting at NVU-Lyndon and hopes to use these skills on the SGA executive board to not only go over financials but also look at how clubs and campus involvement is marketed to new and incoming students. Like many of the other candidates, Munroe sees student involvement as one of the larger issues the campus is facing and hopes to address it with new marketing tactics and encouraging clubs to interact with one another to host larger events and activities that reach a more diverse student body.
Munroe comes to the race with experience by being the Student Investment Club’s SGA Representative and Ultimate Frisbee’s Treasurer. He has an understanding of how clubs’ financials are handled and how SGA meetings are run, and through being Financial Controller, he hopes to encourage more funding to the campus organizations, claiming “the clubs are really the major link between students and the SGA, and I think more support there will keep more students here.” Munroe thinks the poor student retention rates NVU-Lyndon has been facing are connected to the lack of student involvement and hopes to address both by serving on the SGA.
“From all the time on campus I’ve been spending, I’ve really gotten an appreciation for the people and the campus, and I think [running for SGA is] the perfect opportunity to give back to everyone.” -Jesse Munroe
Originally from Dover, New Hampshire, Munroe fell in love with how close NVU-Lyndon is to nature, surrounded by mountains and trails. He wants the SGA to continue to build a sense of community by connecting and communicating more directly with the student body, especially those not associated with SGA-affiliated clubs. “Students need to be more aware of the resources SGA has for them, he admitted at the open forum.
SGA Administrative Vice President
The SGA’s Administrative Vice President is like a “secretary” on the executive board. They are in charge of taking attendance at all meetings, creating meeting agendas, keeping track of the meeting minutes, and is in charge of filing all club constitutions. The Administrative Vice is also the only SGA Executive Board member to hold voting power.
There are no candidates interested in the role of Administrative Vice President. Unless a write-in candidate gets enough approving votes and accepts the position, it will likely be vacant in the next academic year. Going into the fall, any student may request a petition from the Student Government to collect signatures of the student body, approving them for serving on the SGA, and the Student Government General Board may hold a special vote.
SGA Elected Representatives
Per the new amendments to the SGA Constitution, ratified at the September 9, 2020 SGA General Board meeting, the elected representatives of the SGA consist of three representatives for each graduating class, three representatives of the commuter student population, two non-traditional student representatives, and one international student representative. For many years, most of these seats have remained vacant. One candidate is interested in filling a position representing the Class of 2023 and two others for the Class of 2024.
Like the SGA Executive Board, elected representatives are expected to hold Town Halls throughout the semester. During SGA meetings, they are supposed to vote alongside the portion of the student body they are there to represent. All elected representatives will also serve on the Financial Committee which decides club and SGA budget allocations for the next academic year.
Renee Chaples served as an elected representative for the Class of 2023 in her first year before running for Administrative Vice President, which she will be retiring from at the end of the semester. She was recently appointed as the Campus Activities Board President for the upcoming year and thus cannot hold an executive board position with the SGA. Now at the end of her second year, Chaples looks to return to the elected representative position to continue engaging clubs and students with the SGA and CAB.
In addition to her roles in CAB and SGA, Chaples is a Resident Assistant, Public Safety Officer, and Quimby Art Gallery Assistant. She also works at the Walmart near her hometown of Palmer, Massachusetts. Chaples is an active member of The Critic, Dance Ensemble, and women’s tennis team. On top of it all, she is studying Animation and Illustration, Broadcast & Digital Journalism, and Psychology at NVU-Lyndon. With all of these connections, she hopes to encourage students to “work more collaboratively… together as a community.”
“When it comes down to us, the students, we’re the ones paying the money to be here. We are the majority of people on campus. I think it’s important that when decisions are being made on a higher end, that our voices are the ones being heard.” -Renee Chaples
Chaples says one of the main issues facing NVU-Lyndon currently is the animosity between the two NVU campuses. “I think there’s a lot of unresolved animosity between the Lyndon and Johnson campuses, and I think now as we approach another consolidation in the near [future], we definitely need to resolve these kinds of issues,” she said. Her goal in the incoming year is to work together with Johnson to repair the divide that has developed over the past few years.
Also running for an elected representative position is first-year Jasmyn Wilkinson. Wilkinson currently holds a position as an elected representative for the Class of 2024 on the SGA. She looks to continue representing her class next year. The Computer Information Systems major wants to set up ways for her class of students to be more involved around campus and interact with the upperclassmen more seamlessly. “I feel like campus in a normal year… you wouldn’t know who’s a first-year and who’s a fourth-year because everyone would be mixing in different activities,” she admitted.
This past year, Wilkinson has held a job at Walgreens and joined the Twilight Players on-campus in addition to her role in SGA. In her experience on-campus, she wants to believe the lack of student involvement is due to the pandemic. With the fall semester looking to have fewer COVID-19 restrictions, Wilkinson’s goal is to find a root cause for the lack of involvement aside from the virus and be able to address it.
“No matter how big or small the school is, there’s always going to be a line between students and administration… SGA is kinda like the middle ground.” -Jasmyn Wilkinson
In addition to the lack of student involvement, Wilkinson recognizes that students’ mental health has been a major concern over the past academic year. Wilkinson also says that the most important skills of being a class representative are being approachable and being a good listener, and through that, she hopes to be able to connect her peers with resources and help construct new programs to address mental health on-campus.
Also running for one of the Class of 2023 Representative seats is first-year Ariel Day. Day hopes to create more student forums and build a stronger sense of community among her peers by joining the SGA. She also says that active listening is important to being an elected representative, and as an Early Education and Special Education major, she has that skill.
Day was part of the Dance Ensemble in her fall semester but moved remote in the spring, making it harder for her to get involved. She understands that student involvement is a huge problem on-campus and can understand multiple perspectives of that debate. As an elected representative, Day wants to work with the SGA Executive Board to create more activities for students to partake in. SHe has some ideas she wants to pitch to the SGA and will also be looking to gather student input on what they would like to see around campus. Day admits that the mental health crisis students are also facing could be directly related to the lack of things to do.
“As I’ve seen, mental health has degraded over the past semester, not only because of COVID, but because of the lack of involvement and not really having things to do on-campus. And they want to do [things].” -Ariel Day
Feature Photo designed by Alexandra Huff