Steven Bird, presidential candidate
Year: Junior
Major: Psychology with a minor in Legal Studies
Monica Gonzalez, vice presidential candidate
Year: Freshman
Major: Biology
Campaign Slogan
“Bird is the word.”
Experience
Bird: Student employee for Academic Advising since summer 2012; president and secretary of Broadway Bulls; SG senator in fall 2012; and current senate pro-tempore.
Gonzalez: Participated in a high school science club and led a movement in environmentalism on her campus. Also served in USFSP senate as vice chair for the University Committee on University, Community & Governmental Affairs.
Platform
“Coming from advising, I want to hit on academics. We’re doing a wonderful job on clubs and organizations, that whole scope,” Bird said. “We’ve tackled that pretty well. Now, let’s look at the other side of school.”
“We know we want to help SGEF out,” Gonzalez said. “We’ve already been so sustainable and so environmentally-friendly with everyone here, and we’d like to get everyone involved in that.”
Top 3 Issues on Campus
Campus Improvements:
Free Printing # “It’s gotten to the point where we have set aside reams to last until Friday and they are gone by Tuesday,” Bird said. He mentioned a kiosk from the University of West Florida, which implemented a kiosk that would allow students to scan and reimburse their activity and service fees through “free printing.”
Campus Diversity # “I want to showcase that we are a diverse campus and really build on our culture that way,” Bird said. “Everyone focuses on the freshman student, the commuter student, but has anyone taken into consideration maybe talking to the transient student, saying, ‘Hey, you’re not a student at this campus, you actually go to a different campus, what do they do there that we can bring here? Can you help us?’”
Academics and Scholarships # “Yes, you come here for our events, but you come here to study, to learn. You come here to teach. How can we improve that?” Bird said.
“It’s just helping students with money,” “College is expensive and I’m finding that putting up more scholarships will attract more students, and they don’t have to worry so much about jobs and trying to do academics at the same time,” Gonzalez said.
The Pool:
“One of the things I wanted to do while in senate was work to remodel that whole area so that there was more seating, a better look to it, a way that it brings more attention to the Waterfront,” Bird said. “I want to build that up. I know that we have the funds, I know that we have the know how and the resources. It’s just getting to it.”
Why should you lead the student body?
“We aren’t going to promise unrealistically big things, such as we can’t promise you a full indoor basketball court,” Bird said. “Our ideas are grounded. We’re logical, but we also care about people.”
“As long as we can start a base, a stepping stone for later leaders to come in and eventually add onto that, it would be great,” Gonzalez said. “I know that we can’t promise all of these things and just have it there. It just doesn’t work out that way.”
