Building Catholic You
By Noelia Veras and Theresa Whitfield
To the Building Catholic You ticket, the best candidate for the Student Government Association’s (SGA) executive board is the one with prior experience and a history of hard work in the senate. These prerequisites are a foundational part of the ticket, translating into each individual’s goals and proposed reforms for the upcoming school year. The goals of this ticket include greater transparency and communication between SGA and the student body, as well as improvements to overall campus life.
Sophomore politics major Gerald Sharpe is currently a senator for the class of 2022 and is also a resident assistant in Reardon Hall. It is Senator Sharpe’s two years of experience in SGA – work that he believes separates him from the other presidential candidates because of the resolutions he has passed this year– that “give him the know-how,” he said in the presidential debate, to enact reforms at Catholic University. He sponsored Resolutions 004, 007, and 009, and co-sponsored bill 1 and resolutions 005, 006, 011, and 017.
“You have to be in SGA to identify [its] problems,” said Sharpe in the presidential debate.
Some of the proposed changes to campus life include an increase to student minimum wage and creating more student jobs on campus, a plan to curb the heavy traffic in the mailroom at the beginning of the semester, and additional counselors at the counseling center.
To increase communication between the university and SGA, Building Catholic You has proposed two new executive initiatives: the athlete and green initiatives.
Del Carmen is a sophomore senator in SGA who is majoring in both politics and psychology. She decided to run for vice president because of the love that she has for Catholic U’s SGA. Similar to Sharpe, del Carmen has served on SGA for two years. While in office, del Carmen was able to pass Resolution 21, otherwise referred to as the menstrual equity bill, which calls for feminine hygiene supplies to be provided in all of the female bathrooms on campus. Del Carmen also actively worked on a flexible pass/fail option for student’s in light of the recent circumstances with COVID-19, which passed on March 30.
Del Carmen has many plans for VP. A big goal for her is to be a “face of approachability” and include all students on campus. She also aims to build a mentorship program within SGA so that new senators feel comfortable when they join. In line with her goals to increase diversity, del Carmen also wants to set up a minority student scholarship fund.
“I know that I bring a very different perspective than most students at Catholic in that I am a minority and I have very niche interests,” del Carmen said. “I really want to make sure that those students who feel like they haven’t been completely represented are represented, while also representing the majority of students on campus.”
Junior politics major Civitello’s two years of experience on the Treasury Board have given him the “practical and rational understanding” of the strengths and weaknesses of the board and how to improve upon them. He has a plan to reform the bylaws – a plan which he calls “The Big Six.”
“I think nine students out of ten on campus couldn’t tell you how to reform the treasury board bylaws,” Civitello said. “I want to use my experience to be able to do that for the benefit of all the students.”
The six components are a lower GPA requirement to serve on the board; a standardized process of hiring directors and filling vacancies; a strict transparency timeline on decisions; reserved funds for closed student organizations, such as Knights of Columbus and the a cappella groups, which are not allowed to present to the Treasury Board; funding availability for speakers; and clarifying the appeal process.
Abby Anger, a sophomore politics and psychology double major, is running for secretary to give a unique voice to students who might not be as involved or knowledgeable of SGA or what it does. Anger feels as though the accomplishments of SGA and Treasury Board are not communicated and translated well enough to the students and aims to change this if in office. Her main focus is to step beyond communication and to move more toward engagement. Anger plans on achieving this with the communication strategy called the “Open Door Policy.” This is an initiative the whole ticket plans on pushing to have daily office hours, consistent tabling, monthly newsletters, and more transparent communication. Anger also believes that the Building Catholic You ticket has already shown exemplary communication skills and strategies.
“While pushing our message and our social media platforms, we have also done a really good job reaching out to people who we might not know as well to check in on them to see how they are personally doing,” Anger said.
While the Building Catholic You ticket has an impressive history with SGA, the question is whether or not a cabinet of mostly-underclassmen SGA-insiders will be able to enact institutional change in the organization or will pick up where the incumbent cabinet left off.
