Despite Elon’s Student Government Association working to recruit members to run in elections, no student applied to run for student body president. The application closed at 5 p.m. March 11.
The organization met for a special meeting March 12 to amend the bylaws and extended applications for all SGA positions until 10 a.m. March 13. SGA initially extended the deadline to 10 a.m. March 12, but according to SGA election bylaws, the organization was not technically allowed to extend it without an election amendment approved by the senate, and no applications were accepted by the second deadline.
“The goal is to create the flexibility needed to meet the evolving needs of our organization and the student body,” Caroline Mitchell, vice president of communications, wrote in a statement to Elon News Network.
An hour before the application closed, Student Body President Britt Mobley said he felt good about elections.
“At the moment, very pleasantly surprised with the amount of students that are going to be involved in this race,” Mobley said.
Mobley said particularly with executive positions, students can be hesitant to run initially due to the election process itself. As it isn’t made public who is running for each role until the application process is closed, Mobley said something students don’t run for a position they think someone else is running for.
Election Chair Senior Danny Nickel said the elections committee began in the fall working to increase visibility on campus. Nickel said after seeing no one apply in time for student body president, he hoped that would motivate someone to run.
“Just to let students face the reality of what the situation is and hope that members of our organization are ready,” Nickel said. “People that are already sitting on the Senate currently, that were in the room today, just to kind of provide the eye opening perspective that nobody has been ambitious enough or ready to step up to this position.”
Nickel said while SGA will continue to post on its social media accounts, he does not think many students on campus engage with its content.
“I think the student body just in general is generally unaware of what it looks like on our social media so they might have missed this opportunity or didn’t know that positions were going uncontested and I think this will be a reality that kind of sparks some conversation on campus,” Nickel said.
This year, SGA also voted to change its constitution, changing the number of executive positions to five with the addition of an executive vice president. However, only two of those positions are elected, student body president and executive vice president.
SGA also added initiative senators, and there will be one HealthEU senator, an inclusive excellence senator, a mentorship senator and a civic engagement senator. These positions were previous cabinet positions, but now will be voted on by the student body.
The election packet can be found on PhoenixConnect and any questions regarding elections can be sent to elonsgaelections@gmail.com.