Current Student Government Association (SGA) Executive Vice President Janice Bonsu was elected Executive President for the 2014-2015 academic year. She defeated her opponent, Justin Whalley, by 436 votes in an election administered online by the Committee on Student Elections (CSE).
Bonsu’s entire campaign ticket won their respective elections. Current SGA Executive Secretary Kyra Toomre, Freshman Class Senator Adelaide Morphett and Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS) Executive Director Will Szymanski were elected executive vice president, executive secretary and executive treasurer, respectively. Each candidate won by upwards of 100 votes.
“This election is the direction that SGA needs to be moving [towards],” Bonsu said. “This has been a very clean election.”
According to Director of Student Activities Robert Turning, only about 1,566 undergraduate students voted in the election. The number of votes and abstentions for each position varied slightly, as Turning did not factor into this figure submissions with illegitimate names in the final count.
Bonsu said that she was impressed by the feedback she received from students throughout the election process, citing the CSE debate, which was held on April 2, as a helpful way to express her platform.
“We didn’t have high voter turnout, but the voters that did vote were very engaged,” Bonsu said. “I got so many calls [asking], ‘How can I get involved?’”
Bonsu toted enhancing transparency and increasing communication with students as top priorities for SGA next year.
“I really want to help legitimize SGA as the face of the student body,” Bonsu said. “I really want to try and attend a different club meeting every week, so I can just go face-to-face [and ask], ‘What’s your club doing? How can SGA help you?’ I’m planning on sending at least one ‘State of the Semester’ email [to] put out the information, and whoever wants to listen can listen.”
Bonsu also met with representatives from the “Oversight Action and Awareness Committee” (OAAC), an unofficial student group with the aim of promoting accountability and transparency within SGA. The group created a Facebook page on April 3 and released a video Saturday accusing Toomre of lying about posting minutes from SGA meetings last semester, as well as positing other accusations regarding SGA operations.
“[After the video’s release,] I personally posted all the minutes online,” Bonsu said. “It wasn’t something that anyone caught on to, but I’m very glad he brought it up. I wish [he] hadn’t [made] a video using my campaign’s video, but what’s done is done; what’s out there is out there, and the minutes are up now.”
Morphett said that she plans to increase SGA’s online and social media presence and make their Twitter and Facebook pages more user-friendly.
“Hopefully [these pages] will be more accessible, more prominent [and] more followed next year,” Morphett said.
In an email to The News-Letter, Toomre wrote that she hopes to continue her efforts to build up school pride year-round.
“I am working on strengthening the connection between undergraduates and alumni and increasing traditions and spirit,” Toomre wrote.
Toomre explained that she is working with the Offices of Alumni Relations and Student Life, in addition to the Tradition Scarf — a company started by a Hopkins alumnus to promote Hopkins spirit.
“[I aim to] cement some of the great strides we made towards a stronger Hopkins this year to make sure they continue next year,” Toomre wrote.
Morphett also said she looks forward to continuing work she started during her tenure on SGA this year.
Morphett worked in conjunction with members of the Parking and Transportation Department, particularly Associate Director Greg Smith, to launch a new Blue Jay Shuttle line to the Hampden neighborhood that runs on Saturday afternoons.
“I’ll be continuing working with Greg Smith to improve the routes and also create new ones,” Morphett said.
Szymanski, who has never held an elected SGA office before, talked about his plans to reorganize funding for student groups. He explained that he has been working on a system that will allocate funding to groups based on their long-term goals instead of just their short-term needs.
“Taking into account the goals of groups and working directly with these groups in seeing a long-term picture, the treasury and [the Student Activities Commission] can help students further legitimize their organizations on this campus,” Szymanski wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “I have dedicated my entire time at Johns Hopkins to the increase of discussion of different perspectives and innovative ideas, so student group presence is close to my heart.”
Bonsu said she hopes to get started on making changes for next year as soon as possible. The newly elected executive board plans to meet Friday with current Executive Treasurer Dylan Gorman to discuss next year’s budgets.
“[We want] to see if there’s anything we can do to impact Advocacy and Awareness groups that want [more funding] going into the next year,” Bonsu said.
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