Quinnipiac University’s Student Government Association (SGA) held special elections on Wednesday, Oct. 19 to fill in four senator positions within SGA cabinet. These positions included two junior senators, one senior senator, and one identity senator.

SGA special elections are held once every fall and spring semester. This is done to fill in certain positions that candidates did not run for. For this election, students were able to run for one of the open seats without having to campaign. However, it was required that runners follow a formal process to be elected.

“There’s a lot more people who meet with me than actually end up running. I think we initially had about 12 people who were looking at running,” Jacob Cedor, SGA vice president of operations said. “It ended up being a total of, what, seven people I think were here today to give their two minute statements.”

According to Cedor, candidates must attend an information session with him, write a one hundred word statement, and attend the election meeting where they would give their statements and current members vote and deliberate on their candidacy.

“Everyone who came today did a really amazing job with their statements,” Cedor said. “I was super impressed with everyone, even the people who weren’t elected.”

Of the seven students that ran, four were appointed: Liana Suarez, senior senator; Sarah Milch and Ilija Kerceli, junior senators; and Zoe McLaughlin, identity senator. Of those students, some already have ideas for future initiatives they want to achieve.

Senior Senator Liana Suarez says she would like to improve the commuter experience on campus.

“As a commuter for the last four years I felt like in the beginning of it all, I felt a little left out,” Suarez said. “But realizing that there is organizations that can help that, such as SGA, I hope to make all commuters feel welcome.”

Junior Senator Sarah Milch said she hopes to make Quinnipiac’s York Hill campus more lively.

“I want to work really closely with the people up at York Hill,” Milch said. “I know that right now sort of the vibe at York is kind of like a living only type of place and I want to make it more of a fun hangout spot.”

Identity Senator Zoe McLaughlin said would like to start an initiative on improving accessibility for disabled students.

“One future initiative I can think of right now is that some of the automatic door buttons for handicap people to open the doors, they do not work and fixing those should be an easy fix,” McLaughlin said.  “But it will require work with facilities.”

Although Junior Senator Ilija Kerceli is still working on his idea, he says he’s open to suggestions. 

“I like to listen to the people’s problems,” Kerceli said. “I will have meetings with my committees, they will give me my duties on what I will have to do.”

Overall, Cedor says that he’s looking forward to what these new students will bring to SGA. 

“Every candidate did an amazing job, they all have really good ideas, they all seem to have new perspectives that we don’t really currently have on the org [organization].”

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