By Jaylin Johnson, Correspondent
During the weekend of Sep. 16, 2021, SGA Treasurer Dylan Astrup and Secretary Meagan Fama interviewed over 40 candidates for executive positions in the Student Outreach Action Resources (SOAR) and Treasury Board. SOAR executives will be in charge of the whole program,helping other freshmen grow as leaders, from running meetings to planning events such as Spirit Week. The Treasury Board members would be researching new programs and are more knowledgeable about the SGA’s budget for the semester so they can assist at Budget Committee meetings.
The new students that will be fulfilling these roles will be as follows: for the Student Treasury Board, Zachary Traynor will be the Assistant Director, Hunter Difabio will be the Marketing Director, and Makayla Gill, Fjor Robles, and Adam Palacios will be the Executive Board members. For the SOAR positions, Astrup and Fama wanted Freshmen to apply to gain leadership experience, the primary purpose of the SOAR program, with the new officers being Christopher Sorensen as the Director, Hali’s Bull as the Assistant Director, and (Giselle) Natalie Castillo as the Marketing Director for this year.
All new officers went through an interview focusing on what changes they wanted to bring to the campus and the kind of people they wanted to be. Above all else, Fama said, “What we were looking for was just people who, even as Freshmen, had ideas to bring to campus.” The new members all had ideas on how to fix parts of the campus even though they had only been here for a couple of weeks by this point. This fact, combined with the applicants’ resumes, impressed Astrup and Fama, leading to the applicants becoming executives. The SOAR executives will mainly be working with Fama, while the Treasury Board members will be working with Astrup on the Budget committee. “I’m just really looking forward to watching these particular people grow into their positions as leaders, and I think that a lot of them have the potential to bring some really cool ideas to the SGA and campus.” Fama had said when asked what she most looked forward to about working with the new executives. These eight students will undoubtedly be leaving their mark on the campus by the end of their terms, and it is clear that Astrup and Fama fully believe they will grow to be exceptional leaders in the upcoming year.
