The Student Government Association elections are over, and the results are in.
The new SGA president is sophomore Keyana Miller, the new vice president is junior Hunter Shipley and the new secretary/treasurer is sophomore Megha Gupta.
The three ran on the same ticket as, KHM, with the slogan, “Speak up, Speak Out, Speak Freely.”
All three executives are highly involved at ETSU, in both SGA and other activities.
Miller has been part of SGA since her freshman year at ETSU. She later became the SGA parliamentarian. In spring 2017, she became an associate justice.
Outside of SGA, she’s involved with POLO and Diversity Educators.
“Some might argue I’m too involved, but it’s made me the student I am today and it’s gotten me to this position,” Miller said.
Miller was incredibly excited when she found out that she was the new SGA president for the 2017-2018 school year. The results from the election were sent out in an email last Friday.
“We got the results, and I looked at Hunter, my VP, and he had won by eight votes,” Miller said. “I take that as we as a whole won by eight students. I’d like to say that those eight students were ones that we went to speak to in different organizations and talk with them and get their feedback.”
Shipley has been a part of SGA for three years and served as SGA’s attorney general this past year. Aside from SGA, Shipley is a POLO leader and a YoungLife leader at Daniel Boone High School.
As someone who has been highly involved in SGA, Shipley knew he had the experience to succeed as vice president.
Jeff Howard, the associate vice president for student engagement, called every student who ran for an exec position individually to let them know the election results. Howard would not tell them whether anyone else on their ticket had won or not.
“That was a huge feeling,” Shipley said about his whole ticket getting voted into office. “I think it’s the first time that that’s happened in three or four years. We (KHM) had built our whole platform together, and I had gotten to know Keyana and Megha really well throughout the campaign. I know that we will work really well together.”
Gupta served as a senator of SGA this past year. She helped with events like World Hijab Day and the Civility Month speaker Dr. Bernice King. She is a member of International Students and Sigma Kappa.
Gupta wanted to run for SGA secretary/treasurer and knew Miller and Shipley would be the perfect running mates.
“I told Keyana during Civility Celebration that I was running for the secretary position and I needed a VP and president, and I knew Keyana would be the best candidate for president,” Gupta said. “Initially, she didn’t think she was going to run, but I kept on pushing her.”
Gupta believes that Miller and her had similar thoughts on what they wanted to accomplish as executives for SGA. All they needed was a vice president.
“We heard Hunter had applied to be vice president and we asked him,” she said. “Our whole team ended up working really well together. We all come from different organizations, and we thought it would be best to join together for diverse student representation.”
SGA’s executive board is a diverse group that has been campaigning and telling students all about themselves for the past couple of weeks. However, there’s still some fun facts that students may not know about their new SGA president, vice president and secretary/treasurer.
“I change my hair a lot,” Miller said. “It’s still the same girl in the SGA office or the Multicultural Center or wherever you see me. It’s a creative license to me and I enjoy changing my hair often, so if you see me on campus and you vaguely think it’s me, it probably is.”
Shipley has a pet squirrel.
“A couple of years ago, I found an orphan squirrel and I raised it up,” Shipley said laughing. “So your new vice president is a friend to all the squirrels on campus.”
Gupta was born and raised in Nepal, and she speaks four different languages.
“That factor is kind of unique about me,” she said. “The languages I speak are Nepali, Hindi, Maithili and English.”
As a whole, the new SGA exec wants to make every student at ETSU feel welcome on campus.
“In Spring 2018, I want students to come to me and say that they’ve felt a difference on our campus,” Miller said. “That they felt a more positive experience on our campus than they had before. If one student tells me that the things that were changed on our campus made them want to stay or got their friends involved, to me that’s the most important part, and if I can get that by next year, I’ve done my job.”
