The Audubon Room was abuzz as hopeful candidates and their supporters waited for the Student Government Association election results to come in Tuesday night. They’ll have to wait a few more days for a final decision.
The SGA Presidential race will be determined next Monday and Tuesday by a run-off between André Breaux and Eliot Sanchez. Sanchez led by 131 votes.
This year’s election brought a 34 percent voter turnout, which amounts to 847 voters.
Bob Payne, political science junior and this year’s vice president, did not make the run-off. “I feel I did the best I could,” he said. “I really have to think about what I want to do next – I definitely want to stay involved because I love Loyola.”
Breaux and Sanchez made their way through the crowd in the Audubon Room after the returns, giving and receiving celebratory hugs and handshakes.
Breaux, mass communication junior, said he is ready to hop back on the campaign trail after a fatiguing pre-election week. He said he will be willing to take on any role that would help the university at large if he is not elected. “I would work wherever I’m most helpful,” he said. Breaux said he would work in an exterior role if it meant that he could possibly unite student organizations.
Sanchez planned on stepping up his campaign by continuing to spread his message. “I want to get my experience (and) ideas out to the students,” he said. Sanchez said if he is not elected he will continue to push for his projects. “I still have a lot of projects I’d like to see through.”
Vice presidential nominee and political science junior Adam Kohler, who ran unopposed, said he would have been surprised if there wasn’t a run-off. Kohler also said he feels he will work well with either candidate.
Kohler was not the only candidate who ran unopposed. Finance major Christopher Garlan White is the incoming College of Business president, chemistry junior Kat Conroy is the incoming College of Humanities and Natural Sciences president and Sara Melton, a music education sophomore, is the incoming College of Music and Fine Arts president.
White said he wants business students to get to know their professors and intends to create a database reviewing the various internships that business students are offered through Loyola.
Three students ran for the available congressmen-at-large positions: Dan Lamparter, history junior; Jake Parvino, marketing junior, and Casey Trahan, political science and history junior.
Lamparter, a Cabra resident, said he plans to focus on bringing to light the problems of what he believes is an often-neglected residence on campus. “During the post-Katrina semester we went three weeks without hot water, and no one in SGA knew about it … Cabra will have a voice,” he said. Meanwhile, both Parvino and Trahan cited student involvement as a pressing issue on campus they’d like to see improve.
Lizzie Ford-Madrid can be reached at [email protected].
Center (Hilton Pittman and Tyler Kaufman)
Right (Hilton Pittman and Tyler Kaufman)
