Jasper First Coalition came out victorious in the recent Student Government Association elections.
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Grace Cardinal & Laili Shahrestani, Editor-in-Chief & Features Editor
The Student Government Association held their annual end-of-year elections last week, resulting in a new board, including a new president and executive vice president of the student body. The newly elected board will begin their positions in the fall 2025 semester.
Patrick Kantor, incoming student body president and junior civil engineering major, will succeed senior Jazi Riley, who has held the position since 2023. Kantor’s biggest goal for the upcoming year is to unify the student body through new and upcoming events.
“Unifying the student body, that’s our biggest goal,” Kantor said. “So we plan on starting with small events, just to get kids across the different schools, whether you’re in Kakos or O’Malley or the engineering school, to start bonding there, and then grow it into bigger events.”
Kantor will serve alongside incoming executive vice president Allyson Haskins, a sophomore with a double major in English and communication. Haskins already has her eyes and ears peeled to make change happen.
“Our biggest goal is to leave an impact,” Haskins said. “I don’t want people to feel like we did nothing during the time, or to feel like they weren’t heard. We really want them to know that we’re listening to them. So that’s our biggest goal, we’re just going to make sure that people feel like we’re their friend and they can talk to us during the whole time.”
The pair already have chemistry, coming from a strong friendship and involvement in Greek life together.
“Pat and I are really good friends, and through this whole campaign, we’ve realized we’re [what makes] one another shine,” Haskins said. “I’m very on top of things, and Pat is too, but I am nagging him, I’m a bit like, “Okay, we’re gonna talk about this now, we’re gonna get this done now,” I think that that helps Pat a little bit more. And Pat is so social, so I feel like he really has that for him…he knows the most random people on campus. I feel like that helps us both.”
While Kantor and Haskins ran a campaign together they called Jasper First Coalition, the rest of the new board is made up of a variety of students from different backgrounds. Despite running with the JasperCore team, come fall junior Billy Walker will step into the position of vice president of communication. In this position, Walker hopes to implement a better use of social media for marketing school-wide.
“I would really like to have a TV in the Admissions office showcasing videos done by students, for prospective students to see what it’s actually like to be a student here,” Walker said. “I want to start using social media more. The days of posters are over for the most part. A poster here and there is fine, in specific locations, but I fear people are still really heavily relying on that. It’s really just turning to word of mouth and fun Instagram posts, whether it be a video or picture.”
Current executive vice president and graduating senior Colin Ratner told The Quadrangle the advice he’s planning on leaving his successor.
“Have fun,” Ratner said. “Try to have as much fun as possible. There’s so many good things that are now happening, so take advantage of it. Take advantage of the energy, and get the ball rolling in all different directions. Don’t just focus in one area or focus in another. Get the ball rolling in all different directions and then follow through. I think the hardest thing to do in this position was to follow through.”
Looking to the future, Kantor hopes to improve communication with the student body, while Haskins hopes to reconstruct the allocation of the student government budget.
“We definitely want to utilize the budget a little bit differently, and we want to put more in the fall,” Haskins said. “I feel like there’s so many events in the spring because of the nice weather, and it just feels like the fall feels so long and like nothing’s there…We wanted to do maybe another Wellness Day during the fall, or something like that. That way, the fall doesn’t feel so long and cold and sad. So I would say that’s probably our biggest thing we want to change from previous years.”
Walker also hopes that one day, he’ll be walking away from this position better than he found it.
“This could be a cheesy answer, but just leaving this place better than we all found it,” Walker said. “I would say this year we really were able to take it to the next step of creating videos weekly with Manhattan Media Network and producing content for the students by the students and I just want to continue that, and I think now being VP of Communication will give me, and that club, a bigger platform to get to more students.”
The newly elected Student Government board will officially be sworn in on Wednesday, April 16.