In a little over an hour, 24 pizzas and 12 liters of various soda were left empty — costing students over $186 for the Domino’s pizzas alone – during the Meet the Candidates Session in the Student Union Monday night.
Students will have their opportunity to vote for their Student Government representatives Tuesday and Wednesday online on MyFAU under the “SGA election” tab and at voting stations set up around campus. But how many voters will turn out to choose who will pass legislation regarding their Activity and Service fees?
What is an A&S fee you ask? FAU tags a $10 per credit hour fee on to your tuition, which is allocated to SG, who is responsible to spend it on students.
But, few students were in attendance to meet their potential representatives. If you wanted to be there but couldn’t, here’s some information on who you might be voting for:
The Progressive PartyIn this election, most candidates have allied in two parties: Progressive and Advocacy.
The Progressive Party, with 32 candidates, is composed mostly of Greek, athletics, multicultural and club students.
Progressive party candidate Brian “Jersey” Clark, senior, says, “After candidate meetings, we were confronted by individuals from different organizations who felt people currently in SG only care about themselves.”
“Equality is what we’re about,” Clark says. “We want everyone equally represented and want people to talk to us.”
Also on the Progressive ticket, Nisha Hollingsworth, currently on Black Student Union and Multicultural Programming’s executive board, says she’s running because she’s been involved at FAU for three years with clubs and organizations and wants to represent the student body. Hollingsworth also points to SG legislative compositions in the past, consisting of as few as two African-American students, and says she will “try working on that by getting up and do something about it.”
Sarah Huard, on the Progressive ticket, is a cheerleader who feels that “student don’t take athletes seriously, but student athletes are serious members of the school and we have things to give to SG.”
The Advocacy Party Thirty-three candidates comprise the Advocacy party, many of whom are running for re-election.
Parking seemed like a big topic of conversation among Advocacy candidates, with Freshman Kevin Cho Tipton citing it as a major issue he’d like to handle as a representative.
With party leadership coming from current representatives Jenna Sereni, Trevor Raborn and Chris Mack, who according to Sai Lo have the most experience in SG. Lo also has plans to improve parking without building more lots by “decreasing faculty parking.”
The Advocacy Party also believes in properly representing the students, as Rasheed Shotuyo said to two of the few students in attendance.
“Take issues like that and take it to the people who can do something about,” Shotuyo says.
One of the students, freshman marketing major Andre Rigau, says, “If they [SG candidates] want to get us to vote, they’d come up and say something to me.”
The other, freshman computer engineering major Miguel Leon, referring to the Progressive party, says, “People just came up, handed us a flyer and said, ‘vote for me’ but they didn’t have a conversation.”
