Photos courtesy of USF St. Petersburg
By Alisha Durosier
The University of South Florida St. Petersburg general elections ushered in new leadership for Student Government with the inauguration of sophomores David Nguyen and Elise Prophete as governor and lieutenant governor, respectively.
Nguyen and Prophete ran uncontested last spring, taking the reins from former governor and lieutenant governor Abdul Muqeet Khawaja and Taylor Herman.
The pair will focus on four areas during their term with the goal of increasing student engagement and expanding on the efforts of their predecessors: sustainability, accessibility, equality and integrity.
“[The focus areas] kind of build upon the previous initiatives of the previous term, but we also want to have our own unique spin on it,” Nguyen said.
Sustainability, as one of the USF’s five core values, is a significant part of the St. Petersburg campus’ culture.
Nguyen and Prophete plan to begin with practical steps to promote a more sustainable campus. For instance, they want to introduce new ways of reducing plastic waste, potentially establish more reverse vending machines on campus and find ways to maintain the community garden using recycled rainwater.
According to Nguyen and Prophete, accessibility encompasses a wide range of aspects.
“It means…making sure we’re in compliance with any ramps or railings that are needed,” Prophete said.
Aside from buildings, the pair also seeks to make on-campus events accessible, specifically events hosted on the harbor lawn or other green areas.
“If events are on grass, [we want to] make sure that mats are down so that there’s easier wheelchair movement,” Nguyen said.
“Accessibility also means accessible classes on this campus,” Prophete said.
A major pain point for St. Petersburg students is class registration due to the limited course offerings on the St. Petersburg campus compared to the Tampa campus. The shortage of course offerings also highlights difficulties attributed to the lack of intercampus transportation.
“It’s definitely something that’s big because of how much I’ve heard from students and how much I would like to be able to go between campuses,” Prophete said. “We’re just focusing on the first steps right now because it’s a huge thing to tackle.”
In collaboration with USF St. Petersburg’s assistant regional vice chancellor for marketing, communications and strategic initiatives Carrie O’ Brien, Nguyen and Prophete are reviewing a transportation survey created to gauge the demand for intercampus transportation.
“It’s been in the works for nearly a decade, but I believe with initiative and motivation, we could really push it out of the waste basket,” Nguyen said.
In terms of equality, Nguyen and Prophete want to address any gaps in representation across the student body, government and leadership.
“Equality is just being able to represent our student body the way it needs to be represented and making sure that every student is heard,” Prophete said.
For Nguyen and Prophete’s administration, integrity refers to how student leaders treat one another.
Photo courtesy of USFSP Student Government
Nguyen and Prophete officially took on their roles on May 15. Over the summer, Nguyen, who is from Tampa, worked in person, and Prophete, based in her hometown of New York, worked remotely.
Reflecting on the first few weeks in their roles, the duo said they initially felt overwhelmed.
“It’s definitely gotten better, but at the start I was like, ‘I don’t know how to do anything here. I’m so confused and it feels like a lot,’” Prophete said. “I saw them (Muqeet Khawaja and Herman) working hard all the time and I was like, I know I’m gonna have to do this but I don’t know where to start.”
Prophete’s role as the lieutenant governor is her first experience in student government. While she wanted to get involved during her first semester, she felt apprehensive. However, when she became aware of the open lieutenant governor position during her second semester she jumped at the opportunity.
“I wanted to take that drive and that initiative to involve myself,” she said.
Before taking on the position of governor, Nguyen was a member of the St. Petersburg’s campus council, where he, alongside the other campus council members, looked over student organizations’ budget requests.
“What I really enjoyed was working with other student organizations and helping them out,” Nguyen said.
He found that he also enjoyed hearing student organization’s concerns and felt like the governor position was the next step into helping tackle those concerns.
Nguyen and Prophete are eager to connect with others on campus during their term. In addition to students, they want to build relationships with faculty as well.
“Sometimes they can get forgotten … I really want to learn more about them and hear their concerns because as governor, I’m supposed to hear the voices of not only the student body, but people working at the university,” Nguyen said.
Entering the 2024-25 school term, Nguyen and Prophete are looking forward to their term and are excited to see their impact on campus.
“By the end of our term, I want to look back and know that I actually made a positive change on campus and know that I contributed a lot of good things,” Prophete said.
