Student Body Elects Eleventh SGA Senate Cohort
Photo by Patrick D. Lewis
By Anthony Curioso and Patrick D. Lewis
After the candidates for the Student Government Association (SGA) Senate spent the first half of September campaigning, the student body officially voted for its next Senate cohort on September 22. As per previous SGA election precedent, voting occurred from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Pryzbyla Center and online via the Nest website.
CUA undergraduate students could cast votes for up to two candidates from their graduating class and two from their academic school. In previous years, this would have meant electing twenty-six senators in total; however, with the academic restructuring that took place over this past summer, the number of academic schools was reduced by one, thus reducing the number of available Senate seats from twenty-six to twenty-four.
An hour after the polls closed, candidates and their supporters gathered in the Pryzbyla Center or tuned in via a live stream on the SGA Instagram account, watching with great anticipation as Catherine Weatherwax, a junior politics major and the Student Body Vice President, announced the election results from her position against the railing in front of the Pryzbyla Center Starbucks.
The winning candidates for the Class of 2026 Senate seats were Bennett Bert, a senior majoring in politics and a three-term incumbent senator, running alongside Dion Sinodinos, a senior majoring in media and communications and a first-time SGA senator.
Sinodinos said after his victory, “I am honored to be representing the Class of 2026…I’m just honored that my fellow students have chosen me to be their representative, and I look forward to all the great work we’ll be doing together.”
In the Class of 2027 Senate race, the winners were Jack Hermes, a two-term incumbent senator and junior business major, and Austin Janssen, a junior politics major who was defeated in his bid for this seat one year ago. Hermes and Janssen shall succeed Weatherwax in representing the now-junior class.
“I’m beyond honored,” said Janssen after the announcement. “I’ve wanted to be in this organization for such a long time in this capacity, and I’m really gonna give it my all, like I really care about this school, and that’s why I get up every day and fight for the right things.”
The Class of 2028 Senate race featured Kevin McNicholas, a sophomore politics major who held this seat in Senate X; James Mazza, a sophomore accounting major who served on the SGA Treasury Board last spring; and Sophie Justin, a sophomore and first-time Senate candidate. Ultimately, Mazza and McNicholas emerged victorious in the September 22 election and will represent the sophomore class in Senate XI.
The Class of 2029 Senate race had four candidates: freshman politics majors Brinkley Colquitt, Fiona Tierney, Griffin Reed, and Jude Hassett. This was a slight drop in the number of candidates for the freshman class compared to the six candidates in last year’s SGA Senate election for the Class of 2028. The winners of the Class of 2029 Senate race were Colquitt and Tierney.
After her win, Tierney said, “I’m just like really, really excited. I didn’t think I was gonna win. And I’m just, like, so excited to, like, get started and get stuff done.”
The newly renamed College of Arts and Sciences absorbed the Music and Drama departments from the former Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art as part of the previously mentioned restructuring. Although no official candidates appeared on the ballot in the College of Arts and Sciences Senate race, at least five students launched write-in campaigns for the College’s two seats.
Sophomore politics major Emma Bonney was the eventual winner of one seat in the race to represent the College of Arts and Sciences for Senate XI.
For the first time in SGA history, a runoff election was required in the College of Arts and Sciences between tied second-place candidates Owen Lee, a junior politics major, and Joseph Wages, a senior majoring in politics. Only Arts and Sciences students will be able to vote in the runoff, which will run on September 23 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
AUTHOR’S UPDATE: An email from Vice President Weatherwax to the students of the College of Arts and Sciences at 10 p.m. on September 23 officially declared Wages as the winner of this first-ever runoff election.
To represent the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, Luc Vanraes, a sophomore architecture major and incumbent School of Architecture Senator, won re-election to represent the newly renamed school, alongside Nathan Shehaddeh, a sophomore in the architecture and civil engineering dual degree program.
In the race to represent the Busch School of Business, one of the senators who held the school’s two seats last year, now-junior business major Matthew Moskowski, ran for and won re-election, alongside sophomore business major Peter Cheely, who ran for the first time.
For the Conway School of Nursing, the only candidate to officially appear on the ballot was Felipe Avila, a senior nursing major who previously ran an unsuccessful campaign for this seat two years ago. As a result of the 2025 Senate election, Avila will represent the Conway School of Nursing in Senate XI alongside Emma Ballard, a senior nursing major and returning senator.
In the College of Engineering, Physics, and Computing, incumbent Senator Richard Harrington won re-election alongside a first-time Senate candidate, sophomore civil engineering major William Otto.
The only candidate to appear on the ballot for the Senate seats in the School of Philosophy in the election was junior philosophy major Simon Ospina Villamizar. However, previous tradition has seen all of the seminarians at the Theological College and the John Paul II Seminary band together to cast write-in votes for one of their fellow seminarians. As a result, the School of Philosophy elected Ospina Villamizar along with philosophy major and seminarian Jacob Brown to Senate XI.
“I’m excited about this election,” said Ospina. “About how things turned out. We’ve got good people in the Senate, and I look forward to working with them.”
The National Catholic School of Social Service (NCSSS) also did not have any candidates make official appearances on the ballot. One of last year’s senators for NCSSS, senior social work major Frances Noory, was ineligible for re-election as she is now the Student Body Secretary. Thus, the NCSSS Senators in Senate XI will be Reagan Budasi and Michael McCarthy, both senior social work majors. McCarthy returns to the Senate after a three-year break.
The School of Theology and Religious Studies saw Joshua Ortiz, a junior theology major and incumbent senator, win re-election alongside Julian Jayke Garza, a freshman theology major and first-time Senate candidate.
“Pretty hyped,” said Ortiz, reacting to his reelection. “Going in for my second year, we’re gonna do some stuff, make some changes for the better and we’re gonna do stuff that I want to get done.”
Garza said, “I’m excited to attempt, but not to promise, to try and maybe make the school a little bit not like it was, but maybe a little bit, like, more okay.”
All students are welcome to attend SGA meetings. The schedule for the meetings is expected to be released by SGA in the coming days.
