Brian Bowman, sophomore English and Spanish major at ETSU, won the SGA presidential election on April 9, beating his opponent, Chad Hall, by 36 votes. This year’s election drew in 1,713 votes, 15 more than last year.
“It’s exciting,” he said on becoming the next SGA president. “I haven’t really gotten to do anything yet, but then I’m also trying to learn what I’m going to have to do.”
Bowman will start his new job next semester after TJ Mitchell, chemistry major, has fulfilled all of his duties as the current SGA president. Mitchell will be graduating this May and has been accepted into Quillen College of Medicine.
“I was really excited about all three executive officers,” Mitchell said on Bowman, Ashley Bowser and Suzi Azzazy’s election success. “They’re really enthusiastic about it and I think they’re really going to do a great job.”
Mitchell said his time as SGA president has been a lot of fun.
“It was something that taught me a lot about leadership,” he said. “It was a really great experience.”
This past year, there have been up to 50 resolutions introduced by SGA senators.
“That just goes to show how hard they’ve worked,” he said.
When Bowman first arrived at ETSU, he had no intentions of running for SGA president.
“I was appointed to the senate at the beginning of the fall semester,” Bowman said. “Then the election season came up and I said ‘I think I can do this. I think it would be fun. I think it would be a good way for me to get involved even more, and to get some of my ideas out there.”
Bowman’s main goal is to send SGA representatives to various student organizations’ meetings to allow for their voices to be heard.
“I think that those student groups can sort of serve as foundries where we can get ideas and the SGA can implement those ideas,” he said. “Those groups already know what they want to do and they don’t really have a way to do it other than through the SGA, in a lot of cases.”
Bowman would like to see more students show up to SGA meetings so that they can let their voices be heard.
“There’s a 15 minute window at the beginning of every senate meeting which is open for students,” he said. “Even smaller groups, such as the LGBTieS group, they have advocacy issues with getting their word out and not being given an open forum, and I think that the SGA could work to facilitate that openness and that diversity.”
SGA meetings are held at 4 p.m. every Tuesday in the Culp Center Forum room.

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