New SGA president runs unopposed, wins

Abby Banks won the position of Student Government Association President by acclamation.

On March 12, Abby Banks, political science/philosophy/economics sophomore, was announced as the new SGA president.

Banks, current vice president of SGA, said she’s excited to take on this position.

“I’m excited to make an impact on campus and be able to affect the lives of students in a positive way,” Banks said.

Reid Powell, political science sophomore, will serve as her vice president. He also won by acclamation. 

Powell said he’s excited to work with Banks.

“She is just a phenomenal leader. I think she is ready to take on this role as president,” Powell said.

Ellen Roth, finance/economics/Spanish senior and chief justice of OCU’s student court, said acclamation is a fancy term for running unopposed.

“Winning by acclamation basically just means they ran unopposed. Only one person filed for that position and then that person met the qualifications of a candidate as far as conduct issues and grades went and because of that they were able to win the seat automatically,” Roth said.

Powell said filing for candidacy closed March 10 at 5 p.m.

“Students had a week to file. They received about two emails in their student emails regarding SGA filing,” Powell said.

Because of this win by acclamation, the elections that were supposed to take place on April 1 and 2 will no longer happen.

Roth said while she is happy with Banks and Powell as president and vice president, the student court doesn’t necessarily like it when people win by acclamation.

“We usually like to see more people wanting to be involved and having people get the opportunity to cast a ballot,” Roth said.

Banks said the position of president is rarely ever won by acclamation.

“It happens quite a lot with senate seats, but it’s been a while since this has happened with the presidency, if at all,” Banks said.

Levi Harrel, dean of students, said the election system changed this year. 

“We have not had any student win by acclamation for the position of president or vice president in the past several years, but this year we moved to a ticketed system, and so that system changed a little bit,” Harrel said.

Harrel said a ticketed system is when the president and vice president run together.

“In the past, the positions of president and vice president were run individually, whereas this year, SGA updated their election by-laws and policies so that the president and vice president ticket meant that those individuals ran together rather than separately,” Harrel said.

Harrel also said this could have potentially been a reason for no one else filing for president, but he doesn’t know for sure.

“I think on some level that may have deterred some students from potentially filing. However, we did not see, nor did I have any meeting with, students who were interested in the position who wanted to know more information about that, so while it may have been a perceived barrier, we never received any feedback that that was in fact a barrier to filing,” Harrel said.

Powell said the lack of candidates may have been affected by issues on OCU’s campus this past year.

“This was definitely a hard year for our entire university, I think we can all agree, and SGA had a lot going on. I don’t know if that played a role in it,” Powell said.

Powell also said students may not have wanted to file for candidacy due to the amount of work current President Trae Trousdale put into his position.

“Trae worked really, really hard this past year, and I think a lot of students were able to see that, able to see the work that he did for the university, but also see the toll it took and the amount of work he had to put in to help bring students back together,” Powell said.

Trae Trousdale, mass communications and political science junior and current president of SGA, did not run for re-election this year.

“I would like to sort of enjoy my own senior year and finish my time out at OCU just being a student,” Trousdale said.

The announcement that the students won by acclamation came on the same day OCU officials announced that online classes would start for two weeks after spring break. 

The original dates of the election would have been during those two weeks.

Harrel said this is a happy accident.

“That time they would’ve had to interact with their constituents from their districts and that opportunity would have been cut short in person,” Harrel said.

Roth said this couldn’t have happened in a more opportune year.

“That’s one less thing for students and administration alike to worry about and coordinate in pushing back. It kind of worked out for the best there,” Roth said.

Roth said inauguration is currently scheduled for April 15, but there is a backup plan if the student body is not back at school by then.

“We have discussed doing some kind of virtual, technical inauguration so that we have an official turnover but then holding that formal ceremony next semester when everyone returns to campus,” Roth said.

Powell said he is nervous about inauguration happening while students are off campus.

“It’ll be a lot of work, but I do trust our advisors and President Trousdale to kind of assist in that time of transition,” Powell said.

Roth said there are still some seats available on senate.

These seats include senator, two seniors at large, a junior at large, a grad/law at large, social sciences, humanities, business, international, and athletics.

Roth said Banks will appoint people to those roles.

“Once she makes her selection, those people are subject to senate approval, so that it’s not just one person in power selecting everyone she wants there. As soon as they are senate-approved, they are members of the senate,” Roth said.

For more information on available senate seats, students can contact Abby Banks at albanks@my.okcu.edu.