The Student Government Association president Rishi Shah had his second slate of cabinet members confirmed this past week.
Shah explained last year’s process where SGA had students apply using Formstack links. He went on to say that applicants put in their general information and explained why they want to be in the cabinet, what their extracurricular involvement is and what changes they would like to see.
“We realized that the purpose of the cabinet was to have members from all over campus that are not involved in SGA join in this group,” Shah said, “so this year we decided that they don’t have to come into SGA and they don’t have to get sworn in because that’s for people who are joining SGA.”
Shah was referring to a bill the SGA Senate passed last year. The Formation of Executive Presidential Cabinet Act works to pursue transparency through the student body as well as formally establish the presidential cabinet.
Members of SGA have a positive outlook on the possibilities of the new cabinet as well as the things that have already been accomplished.
Student organizations have partnered with SGA to co-sponsor events that have had good turnouts. Priscilla Febus, SGA Communication and the Arts senator, spoke about the cabinet’s early accomplishments.
“I’m in the Adelantes so we had an event for mental health in the Latino community,” Febus said. “It was mainly the multicultural organizations that were working hand in hand with SGA and in the flyers. They see us working with student organizations, which is what’s important, and focus on student concerns.”
Febus said that cabinet applications opened at the beginning of the fall semester and lasted for two weeks. Social media posts were used to explain what membership in the cabinet entailed. Applications have since closed but SGA cabinet positions have no restriction on who can apply. This is one of the foundational reasons as to why the cabinet was put in place.
Adrian Chavez, an Ad Hoc-ROTC Senator, agreed with Febus and spoke positively about the plan.
“Senators are focused on things concerning academic affairs and village relations, which is something new that we’re doing,” Chavez said. “The presidential cabinet is a separate entity that combines people from frats, sororities or clubs like Flash and Adelante. It brings [together] a group of random well-involved students to work on different projects to improve [the] overall Seton Hall community.”
For the naysayers towards SGA as an entity, Shah believes students should voice their concerns to the right people as saying them aimlessly could result in no progress.
“The purpose of this cabinet is taking the students who have completely nothing to do with SGA and getting them involved in what goes in at the University,” Shah said. “One of the first things we’re doing is having a shared goals document to have our goals for the year. We only have a few months to do these things so they have to reasonable and if they are long term, we have to make sure the student body needs them, and the next student body will take them up.”
Evando Thompson can be reached at evando.thompson@student.shu.edu.
