SRSGA elects new board, body

Speaker Hannah D'Egido will lead the body as president

Published by Joe Wells, Date: April 8, 2022
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The Slippery Rock Student Government Association (SRSGA) has a newly elected executive board with current Speaker of the Senate Hannah D’Egido leading the body next year as president.

The body announced the results Thursday afternoon in the Quad during Student Employee Appreciation Day.

D’Egido received 58.7% of the vote, beating out the other presidential candidate Sen. Amanda Brock, 424 to 279.

The elected members of the 2022-2023 executive board will also be led entirely by women.

In the vice president of finance race, where Brock was also a candidate, Freshman Sen. Nikole Husnick doubled Brocks votes to secure the position, 456 to 228.

Brock will be returning to the Senate next year, winning reelection as one of four College of Liberal Arts Senate seats.

The rest of the executive board races were a lot closer, with some coming down to only a handful of votes.

Vice President of Internal Affairs Liz Hood narrowly won reelection against challenger Transfer Sen. Madeline Smith. Hood secured the seat by only seven votes, 353 to 346.

There was a four-way race for vice president of campus outreach, with each of the candidates securing roughly a quarter of the total votes. College of Health, Engineering and Science (CHES) Sen. Samantha Shaffer bested fellow CHES Sen. Emily Sarver by 12 votes, 186 to 174.

The other two candidates, College of Education Sen. Robbi Austin and College of Business Sen. Braydon Brinker both received 169 and 167 votes respectfully.

CHES Sen. Alexis Jones defeated two other candidates to win the vice president of student and academic affairs position, with 37.9% of the vote. At-Large Sen. Caleb Covey lost to Jones by 38 votes, 267 to 229. College of Education Sen. Rebekah Froehlich secured 196 votes.

Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion Alexis Gish won reelection for the position. She was the only candidate on the ballot after College of Liberal Arts Sen. Makenzie Shiller dropped out a little over a week before voting began. Gish received 659 votes, with 31 votes going to write-in candidates.

The SRSGA did not provide a breakdown of votes by candidate in the Senate races.

For the College of Business, Sens. Braydon Brinker and Rebecca George will serve alongside newcomer Brooke Reagle. One seat is still vacant.

In the College of Educaiton, Sens. Robbi Austin, Rebekah Froehlich and Gabriel Stiles will be working with Marissa McLaughlin.

The College of Liberal Arts will have Michael LaBella joined by returning Sens. Mackenzie Shiller, Ezeck Warren and Amanda Brock.

For now, CHES will have Sens. Madeline Smith, Emily Sarver, Madison Moore and Easton Sones returning. Both Sarver and Moore are currently CHES Senators, while Smith served as a Transfer Senator this year and Sones, as a Residence Hall Senator.

Freshman Sen. Austin Burchell was elected as one of two Residence Hall Senators. He will be joined by newcomer Samantha Dudley.

While 399 votes were cast for the Commuter Senator seat, Hood, the only candidate on the ballot, instead elected to take the executive board seat. That leaves both seats open in the fall. It was not clear Thursday if any votes were cast for a qualified write-in candidate.

Hood was also one of three candidates vying for one of the four available Graduate Senator seats along with Graduate Sens. Sydney Kaercher and Helena Townsend. With Hood winning vice president of internal affairs, both Kaercher and Townsend will be the only two Graduate Senators going into the fall.

The Transfer, Veteran and International Senator Seats will all be filled by students serving their first term in the fall.

Maximus Oberg of Oakdale, Pennsylvania and Nybert Samuels, a 2020 Bonner Leader and exchange student from Jamaica, both were elected via write-in campaigns.

Chris Thrasher, a 12-year Army veteran and criminology major defeated Freshman Sen. Sydney Montana.

But Montana did win one of the At-Large Senator seats and will be joined by six others including Sens. Covey, Gabriella Delcoco and Rose Resnick. Rounding out the seats will be Megan McLafferty, Dorian Anderson and Jackson Novak, leaving one seat up for grabs in the fall.

According to SRSGA Advisor Lauren Moran, 798 students, roughly 12% of the full-time students enrolled at the university, voted in this year’s election – the highest since 2017. The lowest voting happened in 2020, when the university went fully remote during the start of COVID-19.

Outgoing SRSGA President Mia Graziani expressed excitement for how many students took part in voting this year, and was glad to be able to announce the results in person, she said. That all comes from a love for the university, something she wants others to carry on.

“I hope everyone continues to love SRU as much as I do,” Graziani said

The new body will be sworn in May 2 at the body’s final formal meeting of the semester.

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Joe is a senior communication major with concentrations in converged journalism and digital media production. This is his second year with The Rocket and first as the news editor. With a penchant for asking tough questions, his byline can be found on more than 100 articles for The Rocket including many breaking news and investigative pieces. During the hours he’s not wearing the hat of student journalist, he spends his time as a husband, father and dog owner in Slippery Rock.

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