‘We’re not going to take it lightly’: SGA’s president, vice president discuss goals for fall semester

By: Caitlyn Freeman, Editor in Chief and Mikey Olszewski, Staff Writer 

As the campus settles in for the fall 2022 semester, the 102nd Student Government Association will hold its first meeting of the academic year on Tuesday, Sept. 6. 

The administration is led by President Jordan Colquitt and Vice President Damon Edwards II. Colquitt is a junior political science major who previously served as treasurer of the 101st administration.

A junior mass communications major, Edwards II served as the director of new student development in the previous administration. The two ran together under the Pushin’ Progress campaign and were inaugurated on May 17. 

The Towerlight sat down with Colquitt and Edwards II last spring to discuss their goals for the administration and the fall semester. Below are some of the transcribed questions and answers from the interview: 

Question: What made you want to run for an executive position with SGA? 

Colquitt: I will say for me, already having served on the executive board and being one of the few members that weren’t graduating, I was really able to see a lot about the organization and about the school through my position as treasurer and seeing what are the needs of the student organizations. […]. So just seeing the needs of not only the Towson community, students and student organizations, but within the organization like SGA, a great organization, but a lot of ways that we could improve, that I saw from the executive board, a lot of our practices are just outdated. And that’s what happens when you have a 102-year-old organization. So that’s kind of what inspired me to run. 

Edwards II: Last year, I served as the director of new student development, so I was in the cabinet. But prior to my stepping in the role, there was no real outlet for transfer students to be directly involved as freshmen students, because we had the freshman council but there was no transfer council or anything directly for transfer students to get involved. So when I stepped into the role, I created the transfer council for those students to be able to get that same experience, to plan events, create legislation. 

Question: In an ideal world what would the SGA, under your leadership, accomplish this year?

Edwards II: I will say, dining halls […] I have a whole plan for how I would like [dining hall hours]. So that involves [extending] those hours. The dining halls [would close] at 8:00 p.m, they reopen at 9:00 p.m. So that hour in between gives them time to clean up, bring out new plastic materials or paper material or whatever materials that they don’t have to clean at the end of the night. They open at 9:00 p.m. and then close for the night at 11:00 p.m. […] I believe that’s a sustainable system that we can bring for the entire semester.

Colquitt: A centralized student resource center […] Whether you need a suit for a job interview, you need someone to review a resume, you need help with FoodShare, you need to know how to reach SGA for legislation, you need to know where the WEPA print stations are. I just think that we offer so many resources as a university, but they’re kind of scattered.

Question: What are your plans to increase awareness to Towson’s student body? For someone who might not know what the SGA is or how you operate? Or how to get involved? What can they do?

Colquitt: I will say one part of the campaign that we said we wanted to do is strengthen that effort. We have the ability to send out student-wide email communications. It’s something that, in my time here at Towson and in SGA, we haven’t really used it. […] But definitely using that ability more to communicate regularly, with the student body through our communications director, and just increasing our outreach and tabling efforts […] I would definitely say just increasing our outreach efforts to make ourselves more aware, to make students more aware of who we are. Attending student organization meetings, and hosting more collaborative events.

Question: If a student has an issue they’d like to bring to SGA’s attention, how would they go about doing so? 

Edwards II: So I believe there’s a specific form that they would fill out. You can come to any one of us because it doesn’t necessarily matter the position because those people will find the appropriate person for you. Even [Colquitt] doesn’t directly handle legislation. You tell [Colquitt], he’ll tell me or another senator or something like that. 

Question: What does being the flagship leaders, the face of Towson’s SGA, mean to you?

Edwards II:  It’s really humbling. That’s really the only word I can come up with. It’s really humbling to have the privilege to do it, because a lot of students don’t have the option. So for us to be able to represent the students, we’re not going to take it lightly.

Tuesday’s meeting will take place in the University Union, room 322 at 5:00 p.m.

Editor in Chief