Anna Bryson | The Crow’s Nest
By Katlynn Mullins
With the new constitution for a consolidated Student Government, students should anticipate changes to the upcoming general elections.
With these changes come more positions for students to vote on — the president and vice president, governor and lieutenant governor, federal senate and campus council representatives.
Applications are available now in the SG office, Student Life Center 1500, and are due “in-person, via paper” at 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 7, SG adviser Bob Herron said at the State of the Campus Address on Jan. 15.
Voting runs March 2 through 5, though polling locations have not been set.
The winners will be announced on March 6 at noon. An announcement location has been set in Tampa, but not for USF St. Petersburg or Sarasota-Manatee.
Debates and Meet-the-Candidate events will be held on all three campuses throughout February.
Available positions
The presidential and vice presidential candidates can come from any campus, and students from different campuses can run together.
“They are the leaders of Student Government as an entity across all three campuses,” Herron said.
Jadzia “Jazzy” Duarte compared the governor and lieutenant governor positions to the current campus president and vice president position
The new SG system will also include a federal senate, with 60 available seats. Each campus is guaranteed five seats, and the rest are apportioned based on campus population. USF St. Petersburg will have nine seats, Duarte said. Specific numbers for Tampa and Sarasota-Manatee were not mentioned.
Campus council representatives would replace campus-specific senates and only have the power to make budgetary recommendations to the Senate Fiscal Committee.
There will also be one supreme court, and then local circuit courts on each campus.
“It is important that we get as much involvement as possible, particularly from USF St. Petersburg students,” Herron said. “Remember, we have more opportunities now to be engaged with Student Government. We need student leaders.”
Herron said that transportation shouldn’t be a concern. Student Government will provide transportation for students if they need to be on other campuses.
Governing bodies from all three campuses are still working on statutes for how SG will be run, Duarte said. (A basic breakdown can be found here.)
“It’s been kind of overwhelming because we’re getting into gray area… I’ve never seen anything like this,” Duarte said. “But I think that’s the beauty of consolidation because we’re making it our own.”
Dylan Hart contributed to this report.
