A wave of students vying for Suffolk University’s Student Government Association executive board positions announced their candidacies this week.
Student Government Association elections to choose next year’s president, vice president, secretary and treasurer will begin March 3 and run through March 5, according to current SGA Vice President Grace Kane.
This year’s election is slated to potentially bring a complete shake-up to SGA’s current board, with President Clinton Oreofe, Kane and Treasurer Joshua Durand graduating in May. For the four executive board positions, Thursday, Feb. 13 is the final day candidates can be nominated and Feb. 26 is the final day candidates can be approved to run.
This story will be updated as more candidates announce their campaigns.
President
Charlie Reyna-Demes
Charlie Reyna-Demes was the first person to announce candidacy for SGA president Feb. 10. As the current student representative for the College of Arts and Sciences, Reyna-Demes has plans of uniting the student body and holding university administration accountable.
Reyna-Demes, a junior politics and economics double major, has been involved with SGA since starting at Suffolk in many different roles.
He said that in the past five years, the administration made decisions without the input of Suffolk students and faculty, and this needs to be addressed.
“I think one thing that’s really concerning is that the way the schools run as a nonprofit, it still kind of treats us like a business model. They’re sacrificing the salaries of our professors, of our faculty, in order to spend more on themselves and also do massive purchases like the new $30 million residence hall,” said Reyna-Demes.
With many issues that he wants to tackle, Reyna-Demes said that the student government needs to function more like a student union in order to make their voices heard.
“We need a way to organize a student body. Which is possible because we have seen it in the past few months, students organize protests in front of the State House. An organization like that will be a powerful force on campus. That is what I want to get done, that would be able to start addressing these big issues,” said Reyna-Demes.
With a few days before the deadline to submit applications, Reyna-Demes was the first to make his announcement public. Saying that he wanted to start as soon as possible.
“There’s going to be a ton of information getting out to students, but I want them to know precisely what I’m running for early on so that they can know more about the issue. As long as this issue gets out there, to the student body and people start caring about this, the position of president doesn’t matter,” said Reyna-Demes.
As a candidate with goals pertaining to the administration, Reyna-Demes said that his campaign may take a “stronger approach” than his opponents.
“I think the other candidates involved are going to be focused a lot on the on club issues and student issues, but the biggest issue that we are facing right now is the fact that the student government needs to be taking a more proactive role in representing the student body because no one else is going to be the voice for the student body,” Reyna-Demes said.
With the campaign just beginning, Reyna-Demes said he’s focused on the issues at hand and educating other students on what can be done.
“We need a strong candidate and a strong campaign in order to get some of these issues resolved. We can’t have the same old, passive language and activity that we have seen in the past from, not only the student government but the [student] body, in response to these issues, because it’s giving the administration a blank check to do whatever they want,” Reyna-Demes said.
Ruby Walsh
Current SGA Secretary Ruby Walsh announced her run for president Feb. 10. As the only candidate who has held a SGA executive board position previously, the junior politics, philosophy and economics major said she hopes to use her experience to set up a successful term as president.
Walsh said she has grown confident as SGA’s secretary throughout the past year, but is ready to step from what she described as a “backbone” role into the organization’s top leadership slot.
“I want to take the internal expertise and push it out,” Walsh said. “Just making sure that my voice and the voice of the student body is heard exponentially. There is only so much I can do when it comes to that in a backbone role, in an internal role, so a chance at the external role would greatly benefit a lot of the initiatives I want to accomplish.”
Chief among these initiatives for Walsh is advocating to the university’s leadership to utilize open educational resources – publicly accessible learning materials, such as textbooks – in the classroom. Twenty-nine higher education institutions in Massachusetts adopted this strategy beginning in 2019, according to the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.
“We’re seeing a lot of schools nationally transition to something like this, where the academic body of the school helps out students by investing in OER, offering limited funding and free or low-cost textbooks to all students,” said Walsh.
Regardless of what the outcome of the election is, said Walsh, she plans to advocate for this accessibility increase in the classroom.
“I think the amount of money that we spend outside of our tuition as it stands for just textbooks is quite absurd,” said Walsh.
If elected, Walsh’s second top initiative as president would be to create more community spaces for students.
“I think that because the city is our campus, it would be nice to have an expanded area rather than just Sawyer on the third floor,” said Walsh.
Over the next month, Walsh said she plans to continue to get involved in other student organizations and interact with the student body at large to better understand the needs of the Suffolk community. In particular, Walsh said she plans to engage students who are not traditionally involved on campus to amplify voices that are oftentimes not heard.
The decision to run for president is a risk for Walsh: a loss in the upcoming election would mean losing an executive board seat for her final year at Suffolk, but Walsh said she is up for the challenge.
“I am not going to give up on the senate,” said Walsh. “SGA is my family and Suffolk is my family, so I want to be in a position to help no matter what.”
Andrew Gomes
Emphasizing the power of the collective will be central to the campaign of current SGA Sen. Andrew Gomes. The junior political science major announced his run Feb. 11.
“I saw it as an opportunity of really branching the gap that exists with the administration and the student body,” said Gomes. “The way I see it, there quite literally is no Suffolk without the students.”
Gomes said, if elected, he will sit down with the Board of Trustees and university leadership to create common ground on decisions that impact community members across the university. Gomes said he hopes to bring in as many other students to this conversation as possible.
“I want to have a heart-to-heart with them,” said Gomes. “Just asking them what’s going on with the decisions being made at the school and why so many people have come to [them] saying that they don’t feel like there’s enough trust between students, between faculty, between administration.”
During the previous academic year, Gomes served as the student affairs committee chair. During his time in the role, Gomes authored SGA’s resolution opposing the arming of Suffolk University Police Department officers.
Club funding is a central issue Gomes said he hopes to tackle if elected to the position, addressing issues he’s seen with clubs having enough money to accomplish what they want and students feeling that their activities fee is going towards things that benefit them.
“They’re not seeing all of that money used to its fullest potential,” said Gomes. “We hold a sincere responsibility to address that.”
In hopes of kicking off his campaign centering student voices, Gomes said he plans to put out a survey to students on social media next week to learn what their key concerns are. He also said he plans on continuing to connect with students across campus,
Gomes said the choice to run for the association’s top leadership slot was one he has “floated in his head for well over two years.” The decision to run for president swings full-circle for Gomes to the impact of former SGA President Angela El-Jazzar during his first year at Suffolk.
“[El-Jazzar] quite literally kickstarted my SGA career and my involvement at Suffolk in general,” said Gomes.
Gomes’s view on leadership, he said, has come to reflect a quote from a professional mentor of his: “It’s not your work. It’s not my work. It’s our work.”
“It’s OK to not have all the answers … just because you hold that title,” said Gomes. “ It’s much more than that. This is a team effort.”
Vice President
Kayleigh Carey
As a current SGA senator for the class of 2027, Kayleigh Carey wants to “be the bridge” between students, administration and SGA as she starts her campaign for SGA Vice President.
The sophomore film and media major is involved in various clubs and organizations across Suffolk’s campus and wants to continue to connect with all students.
“The reason I’m running is I want to advocate for every single student and want to connect with all students and clubs. I want to make SGA more accessible and transparent to the student body,” said Carey.
Carey said that with all the major decisions being made by administration, students deserve people who are dedicated to representing them. With more events and connections to different clubs, Carey wants to be the person helping students across campus.
“I want to be that person people can go to and say, ‘Hey, I have an issue with this. I have an issue with that.’ I love helping people out, I love being there for people and giving them ideas and resolutions,” said Carey.
Although Carey said she doesn’t have a background or major in politics, her time on SGA has sparked an interest in leadership and learning more about the processes that go along with student government.
“SGA is just an amazing group of people. And I would love to be seen as a figure of SGA and stand with not only just SGA but also the student body as well,” said Carey.
Carey’s focus for her campaign is to connect all the parts of the Suffolk community together and create an environment in SGA that is welcoming and open to everyone.
“I’m a very dominant leader, especially on campus,” said Carey. “I want to lead a group of people, I want to make great choices in the Senate, but I want to make sure that I stand as a figure to the student body. I also want to make sure that I stand as a figure to the Senate that supports all the rights of students in that way.”
