New SGA Executive Board and Program Board President Elected Amid COVID-19 Pandemic
By Catherine O’Grady
In one of the most engaging and unconventional elections in Student Government Association (SGA) history, campaign platform “Building Catholic You ” came out on top. The Building Catholic You platform saw all its candidates confirmed as the new executive board for the 2020-2021 academic school year with sophomore politics major Gerald Sharpe as president, sophomore politics and psychology double major Gemma del Carmen as vice president, sophomore politics and psychology double major Abby Anger as secretary, and junior politics major Brendan Civitelloas treasurer.
The 2020 election resulted in the highest turnout ever with 1,287 students participating, over a third of CUA’s undergraduate population.
“I could not have been more proud of the Catholic University community when I saw those numbers,” said current SGA President Brendan Dillion. “Our passionate community of just over 3,300 undergraduates was active in the election yesterday, even though we were unable to be on campus together.”
Hannah Cundey also won the Program Board Presidential election. Cundey spoke about the overwhelming support she received amid some challenges.
“The best part of the campaign journey was seeing all the love and support that I received from SO many members of the CUA community,” said Cundey. “I was actually abroad at the beginning of this semester in Barcelona, Spain, so I really had to reach out to everyone to show my objectives and why I was so passionate about Program Board!”
Dillon spoke highly of her and her success in her new position.
“Hannah Cundey, the incoming Program Board president, is a hard-working and caring individual,” said Dillon. “Although I am naive to the inner workings of Program Board, as I have never held a position on this important group on campus, I am confident in saying that she will do a fantastic job.”
The majority of campaigning was done over social media as a result of CUA’s campus being shut down from the COVID-19 pandemic. This gave candidates the opportunity to be creative in how they communicated with their constituents.
“Some new challenges were presented when we found out that the entire campaign and election would be conducted online, but I really think that this made us work even harder to be able to make contact with students of all different backgrounds,” said treasurer-elect Civitello.
Building Catholic You’s campaign implemented a writing-letter campaign to send to interested students along with campaign stickers. The team was active on social media on both the Building Catholic You page and their personal pages.
With the new academic year comes new challenges, the most notable being the transition into the school year after the pandemic. However, the Building Catholic You team remains optimistic about its ability to make the transition as smooth as possible for the student body.
“Catholic University is our community and being separated has been undeniably difficult,” said secretary-elect Anger. “It will be a priority of this administration to foster renewed connections for our returning students and the Class of 2024. I am confident in both our Executive’s and general student body’s ability to not only pick up where we left off but to grow in faith and friendship during this upcoming year.”
The team also plans on focusing on representing minorities on campus and making student government more transparent to students, especially the Treasury Board.
The new executive board will be sworn in to their new positions on May 1st via live stream on SGA’s Instagram page.
