Throughout the month of Nov. 2020, the students of Union University elected a new Student Government Association Executive Board that included electing Grant Gammon as Executive President.
This year was unique in that there was a runoff for the Executive President position. The candidates for Executive President included Averi Alexander, Takiya Britton, Grant Gammon and Raelen VanDuzer. After the first round of elections on Nov. 5-9, the race was narrowed down between Grant Gammon and Averi Alexander. On Nov. 12, it was announced that Grant Gammon was elected Executive President.
“I’m excited to be in this new role as President because it opens up the greatest opportunity for me to give back to the Union community,” said Gammon, a junior political science and business management major. “I’ve loved getting involved in every facet of the Union community, but I’ve found that working directly with administration through SGA has the most impact on improving student’s lives.”
Gammon intends to use his role as president to improve the dining services for those impacted by COVID-19 and to expand the role of each student organization, no matter how big or small they may be.
The race for Executive Vice President between Ivy-Marie Adkisson and Savannah Garner resulted in Savannah Garner being elected to the position. Samuel Eudy and Jaxon Via ran for the position of Vice President of Administration and Samuel Eudy was elected.
The other students on the executive board include Hattie Thomasson as the Vice President of Finance and Madison Grohler as the Student Activities Council President.
“One of the biggest lessons that I have learned from being president is the need to be faithful in fulfilling your responsibilities, even if that means doing things that are challenging and difficult,” said Raymond Chahyadi, the current Executive President for SGA and a senior economics and political science major. “It will be hard to leave my role as president in SGA. I have been in SGA since my freshman year and cannot be any more grateful for the chance to be on it.”
To be qualified for a position on the Executive Council, a candidate must obtain 50 signatures on a petition from students at Union, have a 2.5 GPA and have one semester of student government experience. Campaigns began on Oct. 29, 2020, so students could evaluate which candidate was suitable for the position. Candidates for the Executive President, Vice President and Vice President of Administration gave speeches at student Senate on Nov. 4th.
“I think the campaign process made me think about and appreciate friendships at Union more,” said VanDuzer, one of the candidates who ran for Executive President and a junior applied linguistics and economics major. “It gave me the chance to have a lot of important conversations about the best and hardest parts of being a student at Union, and I think I love the student body even more for allowing me to go through that process.”
