By Evan Filandrianos, Currier Times Staff///

Student Government Association elections are over and we now know who will be the student leaders for the upcoming academic year. Turnout was slightly higher than previous years, but still only about 4% of the student body voted, which was done strictly online.

The elections were held for all class positions at the end of September with the results released on Facebook in early October.

The list of winners is as follows:

The Executive Secretary is Ny’asia Green from the class of 2026.

Vic Tirado is the executive treasurer for the class of 2025

Taylor Tibbets is the class of 2025 representative

The class of 2026 treasurer is Anderson Hart

The class of 2026 representative is Nalyala Nguyen

The class of 2027 Kerry Byrne is the class representative

Cali Hagstrom is the 2027 class representative, too.

The class of 2028 president is Liv Pennington

Lilyana Hernandez is the class of 2028 vice president.

The class of 2028 treasurer is Glanzer Mar.

New Student Representative for the Class of 2027, Kerry Byrne, said she’s ready to serve.

 “I feel honored,” said Byrne. “You get to really like impact the students and faculty and make the campus a better place for everybody.”

Two members who were voted into the Student Government Association last spring reminisced on their experience by giving input on how they felt being elected to this position by their fellow student body.

Ebony Parker, a sophomore who is the President of the sophomore class, and a Early Childhood Education major with a minor in Special Education, said it’s been great.

“It feels pretty good because I feel like I am very like out and about on campus and it feels good that people like knew my name and wanted to vote for me,” said Parker. “And it feels good because I like to make a difference and I’m very involved on campus.”

Jessica Obijuru, also a sophomore majoring in Criminal Justice, and the secretary for the class of 2027, gave her input, too.

“I love it,” said Obijuru. “It puts me in a position to challenge myself to do better, to improve, not just here but outside of SGA.”

Obijuru added, “I love being able to talk about SGA outside of meetings and be like ‘hey students! Come over to SGA… if you want to know what it is I’m your source.”

Jeannette Buntin, the Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs and an advisor to the Student Government Association, explained how the voting process worked.

Buntin said the SGA election was being promoted through the Purple Press, and each student did receive an email entailing the election process, such as what they would need to if they decided to run for the position to vote for someone in particular, and there was a tabling event too for a couple days.

For promotion, they also used the automatic Video Screen monitors and the Instagram page, and each of the classes was responsible for using their own respective Instagram pages to promote it.

Buntin confirmed that each year gets their own class president, and that they are in “charge,” and are responsible for the programs and events that occur for their class, and they are collectively supposed to be the voice of the student body for Curry College. If concerns were to come up, these students would try to tackle them.

“They are more focused on their particular class.,” said Buntin. “Bringing spirit to their class, bringing energy to their class.”

Voting, according to Buntin, was done online or on a sign-in sheet. There was no physical voting booth.

During a recent SGA meeting that meets every Wednesday, several topics were discussed.

During the event, the members of SGA touched on several topics, such as recruiting and events, soliciting others to join SGA, engaging with the diverse committees, and more. The students then opened a forum to discuss current issues.

During the meeting, it was important to address the concerns of voting discrepancies.

The SGA members mentioned that for voting, they use QR codes, which are in Purple Press or in photos around the Dining hall. They also mentioned that there was no in-person voting and that one cannot vote for someone that is not in your class.

Pat Kelley, Director of Student Engagement and Student Activities, said voting turnout remains low.

“Sadly only 4.14% of the student population voted in the Fall 2024 election,” said Kelley. “It is up from 3.63% in the spring 2024 semester.”

Although voting is not that high, there is a slight trend in a positive direction.