CUA Student Body Elects the Members of the Tenth SGA Senate
Image Courtesy of The Catholic University of America
By Anthony Curioso
The votes are in! After a week of hard-fought campaigning by the candidates, the undergraduate student body voted on September 23 for the people they felt would best represent them in the Student Government Association (SGA) senate. The 2024-25 school year marks the tenth anniversary of SGA in its current format, so this year’s senate cohort informally bears the nickname “Senate X.”
Students could vote for up to two senators from their class and two from their academic school, and voting took place from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the Pryzbyla Center or on the Nest website. One hour after the polls closed, the SGA executive board revealed the election results in front of the Pryzbyla Center Starbucks. The candidates, candidates’ friends, and bystanders watched the reveal in the second-floor lobby of the Pryzbyla Center while others tuned in to a livestream on the official SGA Instagram account.
The winners of the class of 2025 senate race were senior politics major Owen Halbrook and senior criminology major Noelle Ward. Both are first-term senators; last year’s class of 2025 senators (politics major and now-student body President Jeffrey Lance; politics major Neil D’Attelo, abroad this semester at the CUA Rome campus) were not eligible for re-election to the senate.
The class of 2026 senate race had a minor controversy because one candidate was declared eligible to run but barred from campaigning due to an incident at Capital Fest. The eventual winners were junior politics major Bennett Bert and junior philosophy major Gabriel Aliaga.
For the class of 2027, sophomore finance major Jack Hermes and sophomore politics major Catherine Weatherwax emerged victorious. Last year, one of these seats belonged to Clare Tong, a sophomore biology major who is now the student body Vice President.
The class of 2028 had fewer candidates running for its two seats compared to previous years’ freshmen. This year, eight candidates ran for the freshman class seats, down from fifteen candidates two years ago. The winners of the class of 2028 senate race this year were freshman politics majors Nicolas Albarano and Kevin McNicholas.
The School of Architecture and Planning elected senior architecture major Elisabeth D’Albero and freshman architecture major Luc Vanraes to Senate X.
In the School of Arts and Sciences, sophomore politics major Julian Coleman and junior politics major Gary VanPelt came out on top in the race to succeed Correy Crawford, a 2024 politics alumnus, and Jordan Gehrig, senior politics major and the now-executive chief of staff.
The Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art elected Jason DeSilva Jr., a junior vocal performance major, and Madelyn Kobbermann, a freshman musical theater major, as its senators. Last year, these seats belonged to a 2024 musical theater alumnus, three-term senator Kyle Holcomb, and now-junior musical theater major Anthony Graf.
This year, the Busch School of Business senate winners were sophomore business majors Matthew Moskowski and Gianluca Albanese, succeeding now-senior David Fritz and now-junior Maximilian Morris.
The School of Engineering senators will be sophomore mechanical engineering major Richard Harrington and junior biomedical engineering major Emma Wallace. In 2023-24, Maria Hargrave, a sophomore biomedical engineering major, held a School of Engineering seat; this year, Hargrave is the senior director of the executive initiatives and liaisons in the SGA cabinet.
This year, the Conway School of Nursing will have senior nursing major Elizabeth Papa and junior nursing major Mia Habert as its senators.
The School of Philosophy senators-elect are sophomore philosophy major David Norcross, who will serve alongside senior philosophy major and seminarian Joseph Stanalonis.
The National Catholic School of Social Service, or NCSSS, will have junior social work major Frances Noory representing the school in the senate this year. There will be a runoff election at a later time to decide who will be Noory’s co-senator in NCSSS.
Finally, this year’s senators-elect in the School of Theology and Religious Studies are freshman theology major Clifford Pfaff and sophomore theology major Joshua Ortiz.
The first senate meeting is on October 7 at 8:15 pm in the Pryzbyla Center’s Great Room B, where all senate sessions will happen this year. Students may speak during public comment on proposed legislation, with details posted on the SGA Instagram account the day before.
