The ETSU Student Government Association’s first meeting of the new semester got right down to business with the appointment of two cabinet positions: Secretary of State and Secretary of Allocations.
Rana Elgazzar was appointed Secretary of State.
“In my few years at ETSU, one of the biggest things I’ve come to know is to work with a lot of different organizations that have similar goals and especially goals pertaining to increasing the belonging and inclusion for students at ETSU, and that we live up to our diversity statement as a university, as students, faculty and every member of our community,” Elgazzar said.
Elgazzar is a member of Muslim Student Association, Minority Association of Pre-Health Students and International Buccaneer Buddies. As the Secretary of State, Elgazzar will now be in charge of Civility Week.
“So, I hope that this year with the civility series both being extended and furthered in terms of collaboration that we can meet those goals and hopefully make the civility series a continuous part of campus culture,” she said. “I’m excited and have a lot of things in the works already, so hopefully as secretary of state what I can moderate is more collaboration between different student groups and academic departments as well.”
Elgazzar’s peers also believe she will do a great job in her new position.
“Rana is one of most intelligent and capable human beings I’ve ever met in my life, so the fact that we can have her as Secretary of State is quite a catch,” said Connor Landers, the new Secretary of Allocations.
SGA plans on doing a safety walk the second week of February through the Department of Environment and Safety this semester.
“[A safety walk] is when you’re in a little bus, except at night, and you’ll drive around our campus and the VA campus with some of our public safety officers as well as some of our safety committee members,” said SGA Vice President Nathan Farnor. “As you’re driving around, you as a student can just point out the window at things that you think look problematic safety wise: not enough lighting, uneven sidewalks, whatever it may be, whether it be little or major. Then, [the public safety officers] are there to take notes and lots of positive things can come from those.”
SGA partook in a safety walk before and found it to be beneficial.
“We participated in one last semester and mentioned several places needing more lighting and they had new lighting within a week,” Farnor said.
Considering SGA elections, Civility Week, the spring concert and ETSU transferring from the Tennessee Board of Regents to its own governing board, SGA has a busy and exciting semester ahead of them.
