Pictured above: (From left to right) Current SG Senator and Governor candidate Sean Schrader and Harborside Activities Board President and Lieutenant Governor candidate Josh Rampertab express the importance of civic duty on campus.
Courtesy of Sean Schrader
By Sean Schrader
March, 2020 will be a time we’ll never forget –– it marked the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and its many impacts across the University of South Florida, the community, and the world.
At USF St. Peterburg, students had just voted in a historical Student Government (SG) election to determine who would be the first governor and lieutenant governor to represent the campus in a newly consolidated university.
As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold at our university, the student experience changed overnight –– classes were moved online, activities were held virtually and everyone was sent home.
Across USF, it presented many challenges, the biggest one of all being how to embrace the traditional student experience, while keeping everyone safe. However, it ultimately impacted student engagement.
Two years later, as voting begins once again in SG elections, the future of USF St. Petersburg, and its students, is a lot more positive.
Last fall, student engagement rebounded, and you didn’t have to look hard to find it. On-campus events hosted by the Harborside Activities Board like the Waterfront Takeover, the Thriller Nights Ball and Cardboard Boat Race brought students together to create lasting memories.
SG, in partnership with the St. Petersburg Mayor’s Office, was able to bring former St. Petersburg mayor Rick Kriseman to the campus and facilitate an opportunity for students to connect with a community leader.
Although it’s important to recognize the past, it’s also exciting to look toward the future, and the exciting potential that exists with our vision for SG.
[Josh Rampertab and I] know this campus well and our experiences have given us the unique perspective to understand what can be improved on campus, and more importantly, how we can make those improvements.
For some time, we’ve heard ongoing complaints in different service areas of USF St. Petersburg, specifically the parking, housing and dining departments on campus.
The campus governor has the unique ability to create task forces to examine different issues. If we are fortunate enough to serve, we will create task forces to examine these challenges that currently exist in different service areas of the campus.
Moreover, what’s exciting about creating a task force is it will promote inclusivity by giving students from different backgrounds the opportunity to work together to find the biggest challenges and strategize the best solutions.
Our campus is unique in many ways, but one of its most prominent features is its proximity to St. Petersburg’s waterfront.
In order to continue to protect our campus environment, we are committed to working with organizations like the Student Green Energy Fund (SGEF) to support sustainably driven initiatives that help our campus.
Being in close proximity to downtown is also a great asset of our campus, and more can be done to incentivize partnerships and student engagement within our community.
The Bulls in the Burg Program, a guide to local student discounts and perks, is currently available, but not widely known. We want to promote that guide to create awareness of the many exciting opportunities that are available in the city.
It’s exciting to think about where we have been as a university, and where the future is headed. However, creating a future for every student is not something that we can do alone.
It requires involvement, and engagement by every student on campus, which starts with voting in this election. Unanimous participation ensures that we are focusing on the needs of every student and that we are being held accountable.
As voting takes place this week to decide the future of Student Government on campus, we hope you will vote for us, as a unique opportunity exists to fully emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic stronger and unite a campus so that the “OneUSF” mission can truly be embraced.
