By Lindsay Haislip
News Editor
Experience paid off in this week’s SGA elections. Junior Andrew Antonio returns to serve as WC’s SGA President, while Junior Lindsay Dodd takes on a new role as SGA Vice President. Junior Michael Drake will take on the position of Financial Controller. All three newly elected candidates are ready and excited to take on their new responsibilities.
“I am extremely happy and excited to get the opportunity to serve in office for another year,” said Antonio. At the same time I feel like there’s no skipping a beat; It’s just back to work,” he said.
The re-elected SGA President has many goals for the upcoming academic year, building off of the work that he has already done while in office. “Some of the things we want to do are continue to expand the culture of collaboration among student organization, OSA, SEB, clubs, etc. Also, I have the unique opportunity to serve for two years in office,” Antonio said. “I have had an entire year to learn the job and I have been able to identify a lot of the weaknesses within the organization itself, so this year we’re going to focus on fixing a lot of those problems and creating a SGA that is sustainable for the next generation of college leadership,” said Antonio.
Moving forward, SGA is putting a big focus on ‘going green’ and environmental initiatives. That being said, they have created the position of Secretary of the Environment, who will be responsible for all environmental initiatives. “I’m really excited for this,” said Antonio.
As far as what Antonio is most looking forward as he looks ahead to his second term in office, he said, “I am most excited to bridge the gap between the college and the community. We’re working on some initiatives that we think will shed some light on the ‘town-gown’ relationship.”
As far as big events for students to look forward to, Homecoming this year is sure to be “bigger and better” than last year’s, said Antonio. “We’ll work to make it an event for the whole community—family, alumni—and establish a tradition that will last for decades,” Antonio said.
Antonio offered a few closing remarks about his position as SGA President. “I ran for office to make the school great, and to make everyone’s experience memorable so we can all walk away from graduation with a smile, a bright future, and no regrets,” he said.
Junior Lindsay Dodd is also looking forward to making an impact on campus. Upon hearing the news that she had won the election for the position of Vice President of SGA, she said “I was really excited because it’s a position that I really wanted and I can use it to make a difference.”
“I am most excited for the group of people we have so far [in the SGA] because we’re from very diverse groups and I think that will be beneficial in having many different viewpoints in the SGA and reaching out to the student body”, said Dodd.
Like Antonio, she is also looking into what the next semester will hold. “My goals are to have more involvement between clubs and organizations and SGA, and also to increase outreach in the community,” she said.
Newly elected Financial Controller of the SGA, Michael Drake, has his own plans for the upcoming year. His reaction upon finding out that he had won the position was one of excitement. “When I got the call, I just stared at my phone and took a deep breath before I answered. When I found out I won, I let out a brief shout of excitement then immediately asked who won the other offices,” said Drake.
As far as his goals as Financial Controller, he said, “my main goal is to make sure that we can support our student organizations with fair allocations. It is vital that every club get the funding it needs to function and serve its purpose on campus,” Drake said.
“Beyond that, there needs to be some reevaluation of the way we make cuts in order to make the budgeting process as consistent as possible. I’m really eager to get to work for next year!”
Drake is most excited to start working with the other newly elected members of the SGA. The upcoming year will involve a great deal of collaboration with all organizations.
“I guess the thing that I am most excited for is our collective potential – I’m very excited to be working with people like Andrew and Lindsay,” said Drake. “We are good friends and I anticipate many great things resulting from our teamwork. We are very passionate about serving Washington College and are all on the same page when it comes to our goals.
We want to go above and beyond our duties and have an extremely successful year,” Drake said.
All three candidates would like to extend a big thank you to all of the students who supported them in the election and beyond, and are looking forward to serving the student body of WC to the very best of their ability.
March 11, 2011
Volume LXXI Issue 18