Connect UT members prepare for new SGA roles

After organizing campaigns, debating with opponents and winning the elections, members of the SGA campaign Connect UT are gearing up for SGA transitions on Wednesday, April 15.

Will Freeman won SGA President; Madison Kahl won SGA Vice President, and Mariah Beane won Student Services Director.

Currently, Freeman is the Director of Academic Affairs; Kahl is on the Executive Board as Treasurer, and Beane is the Senate Liaison for Government Affairs and a Volunteer Hall Senator.

“This is a really awesome opportunity that we’ve been given, and we hope we don’t disappoint, said Kahl.

“It was really exciting when we first heard about the three of us, but that made it so much better,” Freeman said.

During their campaign, Kahl said that hearing what organizations had to say about why they should care about SGA reflected on them, and that in order to succeed they need to listen to that feedback.

“I think if projecting from a year from now, if there’s still that culture of it, then I don’t think we did our jobs right,” she said, adding that they want to prove to students that they were not just listening during the campaign.

“I would love for us to be remembered as, not a ‘turn around’ because we definitely want to keep the good things going, but people who did our job well,” Freeman added. “People who are running for these positions next year have a hard time finding things that we haven’t done well, that would be awesome.”

He said that they want start by continuing their efforts from the past few months and to spend the time between now and the end of summer learning as much as they can from the students.

Beane added that she wants to spend the rest of this semester having meetings with other Student Services committees and making sure that everyone’s visions align with each other.

Further, she said that while she believes SGA does a good job keeping up with their social media accounts, she wants SGA to represent themselves more as an “open person” that students can talk to and better reach out to as many students and organizations as possible.

Kahl added that they want SGA to start sending out semester emails asking students what issues they believe are most important to make sure students who may not have time to go straight to SGA can still be heard.

Freeman said he is most excited to begin the President’s Round Table because he wants to start working with students, and that it is their responsibility to make it happen.

“It’s us working alongside students, and it’s on us to make that happen,” he said.

Edited by Maggie Jones

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