An Interview With the New SA President: Setting the Precedent for the Next Year

The SA elections are over! With your new SA board being led by Maurie Andino, we can look forward to some changes next year. Without further ado, here’s the first interview of your new SA president, Maurie Andino.

A- How are you feeling after your win? Were you expecting to win or was this a surprise?

M- I always like to be optimistic… Adam is a stand up guy you know, and there are a lot of people that really support him. If I wasn’t running I would have voted for him for sure. So yeah, I really tried to stay on my toes. 

A- How do you feel about your SA team this year?

M- I'm really happy with the team that was voted in by the students… I think that no matter who was voted in, it was going to be a good team overall because a lot of the people that ran did so because… they want to see change via their positions on SA.

A- What are your biggest goals for this next year?

M- So… there's a lot of things that I think need to be done here. I want some things that some SA members have said. One that really resonates with me is Union doesn't really have–other than the balloons at the beginning of the year–we don't have that many traditions, so that's one thing I want to start to instill and hopefully … that's something that would transcend my own presidency … Also just opening up … to our full capacities in the Thunderdome, and the cafeteria back to full hours. I know that's something I'm going to fight for myself … Whichever way I work with Administration, I really want to push to open things as quickly as possible because I know a lot of people are feeling isolated socially.

A- If you were going to give a message, to try and tell something to the whole student body, what would that message be?
M- So something that I want all students to know is if you have an idea or a problem with something, please talk to me in person or DM me on my phone. My phone number’s on uGroups … I really am open to anything … whatever is on students’ mind, talk to me or another SA member...I hope that as the SA president I can set the precedent. We can only make the changes if we know that students want them, so I'm going to make sure that it's very easy for people to communicate … Some people might not feel comfortable coming up to me directly, but if you want to do it in an email or anything I can be completely open to talk.

Alexander Nesmith is a junior

communication major from

Calhoun, Ga.