Elections for next year’s Student Government Association will be Tuesday and Wednesday.
Thirty-two Senate seats are available as well as the three executive branch positions of president, vice-president and secretary/treasurer.
Some of the challenges facing the candidates include strengthening students’ connections to ETSU, improving dialogue between SGA members and the student body and increasing student involvement in and awareness of SGA.
Presidential candidate Rahul Gupta would like to see more student participation in university activities.
“One of my main objectives as president would be to increase student involvement,” Gupta said. “I want to not only increase programming, but to add excitement to the programming.”
Gupta believes that frequent and diverse university-sponsored activities would compel students to be involved at ETSU.
“I also would like to see more areas for students to socialize, more hangout places,” Gupta said.
As a senior pre-med chemistry major, Gupta has served as an associate justice in the student court for two years and says he would like to “use my experience to help the student body.”
Running on the same ticket as Gupta is junior Lindsey Cole, who seeks the secretary/treasurer position.
Cole has been involved in SGA for a year and a half and has served as an associate justice and as a member of the Public Relations committee.
Cole pledges to work towards more student participation.
“I want to see more students involved in organizations and involved in community service,” she said.
Cole also wants people to know about what goes on in SGA.
“It’s important for people to know our purpose and to see how vital SGA is,” she said.
Another concern of Cole’s is the lack of communication between the student body and their SGA representatives.
“We don’t hear enough input from students,” she said. “I think it’ll be important for us to hear their concerns and how they feel about issues.”
Chad Reed is the second presidential candidate. A sophomore pre-business major, Reed has been an SGA senator for one semester and is active in several other organizations.
“I got involved with SGA because I wanted to work for students’ rights,” he said.
If elected, one of Reed’s main objectives is to actively pursue students’ ideas and suggestions.
“I think it’s important to go out to the people and not just expect them to come to us,” Reed said. “People and students have all these ideas, but I don’t think they know where to take them.”
In order to better communicate with ETSU students, Reed and vice-presidential candidate Jennifer Berry plan to host forums and attend various organizational meetings throughout the semester.
“I also think there should be more activities for (SGA) senators to meet their constituents,” Reed said.
In addition to better communication between students and SGA, Reed also wants to generate student involvement and interest in SGA.
“In last year’s elections, out of 11,000 students, approximately 1,500 voted,” he said. “That’s something that needs to be improved. I encourage students to vote; whoever they vote for, just go vote.”
Reed believes that an SGA president is a servant of the student body and should be “someone who cares about the suggestions and views of the students and act as an active liaison between the student body, the faculty and the administration of ETSU.”
“I want to be that person,” he said.
Reed’s running mate is sophomore Jennifer Berry, who is running unopposed for vice-president. Also a pre-business major, Berry has served in the Senate for three semesters during which she has been a member of the 606 committee and chair of the food services committee.
Berry also wants to see increased dialogue between students and SGA. “We want an open-door policy,” she said.
Another of Berry’s objectives is to offers students more on-campus activities, particularly during the spring.
“In the fall we have ETSU Pride week,” Berry said.
“There’s nothing like that to look forward to in the spring, so we want to bring a whole week of activities to campus and have all the student organizations involved during the spring semester.”
In addition, Berry says that she and Reed want to build tradition at ETSU. One of her ideas is to highlight the university’s art programs.
“We have an awesome art school here,” she said. “Every-thing from music to theater to sculpture and painting – and that needs to be brought out onto campus.”
In order to recognize student achievements in these areas, Berry would like to see ETSU establish an annual arts festival.
This, she said, would not only give artists a chance to exhibit their work, but would also “build tradition and motivate students to get involved.”
Stacy Isaacs is the second candidate for secretary/treasurer. She is a sophomore pre-business major and has been an active senator in SGA for two years.
A third, write-in presidential candidate is Priya Ponnapula.
A senior biology major, Ponnapula has served two years in the Senate and has been the chair of the legislative committee for the past year.
“Out of everyone running, I’ve had the most experience in the Senate, and I feel qualified because, primarily, that’s who the executive deals with,” she said.
Ponnapula would like to accomplish several things should she be elected.
First of all, she has taken a proactive stance on education funding and would like to continue to petition officials about the increasing costs of education.
“I think it’s important to let them know that we don’t want the tuition rate to increase,” she said.
Secondly, Ponnapula hopes to promote better understanding and communication between all segments of the ETSU student body through discussion groups and peer forums.
“There’s so many issues that people want to talk about and that just aren’t being dealt with,” she said. “We need to be sensitive to everybody’s views and facilitate open discussion.”
Ponnapula would also like to increase student involvement.
“Well beyond 60 percent of students are not part of any organization,” she said. “We need to get people more involved.”
Ponnapula also hopes to alter and improve the Homecoming process somewhat.
“If I’m elected, I’ll see to it that every organization who has a Homecoming candidate has a representative on the Home-coming committee.”
These candidates will be available for questions tonight at 7 as part of a panel discussion located at and hosted by Dossett Hall.
There are several voting options available to students for the SGA elections.
Students who have had their “z” accont activated will receive an e-mail with a direct link to the voting website. Students can also access the ballot by clicking on the election link from the ETSU home page.
Two computers will be reserved in the Culp computer lab for the elections, and voting will be from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day.

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