Candidates announced for USG elections
By Aaron Garland
On March 13, 2013
The candidates for this year's United Students Government elections that will take
place April 1-4 have been announced.
Current president Sara Garfinkle graduates at the end of the semester, vacating a
position she's held for two years for one of three candidates to assume.
Running for president are Eric Sauerzopf as an independent, Gabriel Johnson as part
of the Johnson-Kernen party and Ashleigh-Ann Sutherland of The Right Direction
party.
Sauerzopf, who is an Eagle Scout honorary and captain of the Buffalo State men's
cross-country and track and field teams, considers change at the top of the
organization imperative.
Sauerzopf's goal as president is to be the voice of students. Providing the student
body with an endless work ethic is what the independent candidate hopes to instill
in USG, he said.
He believes the access for students to voice their concerns and ideas with the
council has been handcuffed during the current administration. Being more
available to the students is advocated strongly by Sauerzopf. This includes getting
them more involved in the community, and creating more clubs and activities on
campus.
Ensuring students have a strong voice of representation is the main message
being delivered by Johnson. She will ensure this to students by thinking critically,
communicating information in an understandable manner and finding solutions to
problems that benefit all.
Johnson previously served as vice president of the student government and the
social events coordinator at Erie Community College's North Campus.
He considers himself a well-rounded individual that can communicate well with
multiple groups, and can apply those skills to accommodate students' issues.
Freshman Sutherland believes she is a qualified candidate for president.
Having served as a USG senator last semester, Sutherland knows the importance
of being active on campus and thinks she can relate well to the student body as a
whole.
During her tenure as a senator, Sutherland attended meetings of most of the
organizations on campus. She gathered information from these meetings to get an
understanding of what the clubs think USG can do to improve.
The response from most groups is they would like USG to show more support -
something Sutherland plans to do.
However, she said she will put more focus into appealing to the non-active students,
if elected. Sutherland feels the general student body that is not active in clubs and
organizations is unhappy with USG's inability to reach out to them.
The executive vice presidential candidates are Megan Jones and Christina Germann
of The Right Direction party, and Adonis Timothy William Kernen and Sabrina
Sharrif of the Johnson-Kernen party.
Germann is the incumbent of the position. She believes the variety of skills and
knowledge she has attained during her time as vice president can prove beneficial to
students. Adjusting to the duties of the position is important, and with her currently
holding the position, Germann plans to apply what she has already learned to
become a better vice president.
Jones is a former president of her high school, and aims to have all organizations at
Buffalo State work together to build a community of students that is informed of the
clubs offered on campus. This, she believes is a way to get more involvement from
students.
Sharrif understands the difficulty of implementing student suggestions, but vows
to find a more effective way of following through with things that are of concern
on campus. Through working in student government at Erie Community College,
Sharrif plans to apply her experiences if elected.
A "consensus plan" is the central goal of Kernen if elected as vice president. It
involves compromises of a better system of scheduling events, reforming the
standard mandatory organizational meetings and improving academics.
The candidates running for treasurer are Alieu Baldeh, Justine Britten and Ashley
Louimarre. All three are running independently.
Aaron Garland can be reached by email at garland.record@live.com and on Twitter
@aa_garland.
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