The votes are in, and the next executive board of the Student Government Association has been decided: Georgia Winn will be the executive president, Angus Abercrombie will be the executive vice president, and Oliver Katz will be returning in his role as executive treasurer.
The elected candidates are all rising senior political communication majors who have held positions in SGA before.
“It was a hard fought win,” Abercrombie said in an interview with The Beacon, referring to his partnership with his running mate, Winn.
“When Georgia told me that she was thinking about running for president, the first question I asked was, ‘How do you want me to serve?’” Abercrombie said.
In years past, another role he had in SGA included a position as a special advisor to the executive president and he has supported Katz in the treasury as executive vice treasurer.
It will be Winn’s second year as a part of SGA, having served this past year as chief justice.
“I love student government, I have loved working with Nandan and Kayla,” Winn said. According to Winn, Executive Vice President Kayla Armbruster reached out to her last summer and thought she would be a good fit for the open position of chief justice. It is an appointed position, so Winn did not have to run.
“Kayla and I have been in a bunch of classes together, the same major, we’re friends,” Winn said. “It has been one of the most fulfilling things I have done at Emerson.”
Last year, Katz started out as the executive vice treasurer of SGA. He said it was rewarding for him to be able to work closer with student organizations than many other officers in SGA.
“It is really nice to be someone that can actually help people achieve long-term life skills in a way that I do not think the rest of SGA gets to,” Katz said. “Ultimately I want people to be making financially responsible decisions for their org, and I think that kind of translates to the real world.”
Every year, SGA passes an annual budget and interacts with student activists and various college departments on what they are working on.
“That is really the work that we are going to keep doing next year,” Abercrombie said. “Because we have so much continuity, I think we will be able to get that work done quickly and move on to some of the more interesting and engaged work that SGA often has to let fall to the sidelines because we just have to keep the lights on.”
Abercrombie has been involved in SGA since the spring of 2023. “Once Nandan’s term expires, I will be the longest serving member of the Student Government Association,” Abercrombie said. He served as the executive vice treasurer this academic year.
“I think one of our biggest needs right now is to get our conduct policy committee up and running,” Abercrombie said. The committee is something he worked to create last year “in the wake of the arrests of the president’s inauguration.”
Katz and Winn also have high aspirations for the next academic year in their executive roles.
“My primary goal is for SGA to position itself more as a fun and approachable organization, because we are the official voice of the student body,” Katz said. “But, I think a lot of people are apprehensive to approach us for a variety of reasons.”
Some of the ways Katz suggested to make SGA more available to students is possibly through more of its own events or sponsorship for organizations.
“For my priorities, it is kind of twofold,” Winn said, bringing up the Student Impact Fund. “I think I value so much students sharing their perspectives.” She noted that anyone can put in an application on what to do with the fund, which can be presented to the financial advisory board and then the general assembly can vote on it.
The proposal SGA voted on was to invest $675,000 from the Student Impact Fund into Emerson’s endowment. Several students voiced opposition, raising concerns about the college’s endowment not being disclosed or divested. Following its final discussion and debate, SGA voted in the form of a secret ballot 8-7, and did not move forward with the proposal.
According to Abercrombie, SGA has over 20 voting members, so not everyone voted.
“I am really happy that our senators were able to vote in a way that they felt comfortable with,” Katz said. “A lot of the time in SGA, we have things kind of passed unanimously, and I am really glad people were able to engage in critical dialog and stay true to their values.”
Abercrombie said he is looking forward to working with Winn to continue to move the fund forward. He added that it will be interesting to see what kind of ideas the student community comes up with and how SGA can facilitate bringing them through to the floor.
“We are in a position where there are a lot of questions about how we can move forward,” he said. “I do not know what the answer is, but this was very close, and I think that it is important for us to consider the fact that there was so much information that went into that proposal, there was so much time and energy that went into that proposal, but it is also very difficult for every single Emerson student, and even all of our general assembly to have the time to fully understand what is being proposed.”
Winn said one of the big things that SGA is working on is improving communication strategy for things like the Student Impact Fund, wherever its future may lie. “[We are] working on that so that people know the resources that are available to them.”
