JAMES LILLIN
Staff Writer
After about 700 votes were tallied during last week’s Student Association elections, junior Spanish adolescence education major Connor Aitcheson and junior public relations major Hannah Apthorpe were elected to the SA Presidency and Vice-Presidency, respectively.
“Students have this perception that the students that serve on our boards are just a bunch of suits that sit there and make heartless decisions,” said Aitcheson.
“I don’t even own a suit; I just wanna throw that out there,” responded Apthorpe.
“Neither do I,” said Aitcheson, breaking out into laughter.
Both Apthorpe and Aitcheson have a warm, amicable presence, and both bring a wealth of experience to their respective posts.
“When I was at Jamestown Community College, I was involved in their student government as well,” said Aitcheson. “I was the vice president of the Student Senate for one year, and I was the president for a year as well. When I transferred here, I got into SA immediately as a class representative, and I was the chair of student relations for half of the Fall semester of 2016. I became the assistant speaker from that point until the end of last semester, continuing my work as a class rep the entire time.”
“I joined SA my sophomore year because the people I was living with were all involved in SA,” said Apthorpe. “I started out as the sophomore class president from 2016 to 2017. I was a member of University Senate during that same time span, and this year I’ve served as a junior representative.”
Both have accomplished a significant amount during their time in SA, particularly Apthorpe’s handling of last year’s campus-wide student survey.
“We spent a while working on the wording, and making sure we were asking the right questions, and we greatly treasure the direct student feedback that came from it,” said Apthorpe. We now have paragraphs and paragraphs of student feedback that are absolutely crucial in deciding where we go from there.”
Aitcheson hopes to bring a renewed focus on communication to his tenure as president, centering around effective and sustained contact with both the campus and the administration.
“We often see executives in SA either having a strong bond with students or a strong bond with the administration,” said Aitcheson. “We want to be constantly communicating with students and passing information onto the administration, and making sure we have a really good bridge between the two.”
Although they made sure to contact clubs directly, Aitcheson and Apthorpe opted to center their focus on online outreach, as well.
“We ran a mainly online campaign, reaching out to class pages, and working through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram,” said Apthorpe. “We also reached out to clubs individually to visit them in person and talked about what we represent.”
Although Aitcheson and Apthorpe were the only named option on last week’s ballot, they were not running unopposed. Junior business administration major Mark Monsegur was set to be on the ballot, only for his running mate to unexpectedly drop out, resulting in Monsegur’s removal with the time limit to get back on already past.
“I respect my colleague for being able to prioritize their time and admit when things are overbearing,” said Monsegur in an email he sent to the presidents of the SA clubs, “yet at that moment I was without a vice president running mate, and thus taken off the ballot.”
Monsegur did manage to secure another running mate, freshman political science major Seth Meyer, with whom he waged a write-in campaign that garnered notable results.
“To get a large amount of write-ins is very impressive,” said Aitcheson. “Turnout for these [elections], even though we do it online now, can be very low, and to have students that passionately believe in him enough to get that amount speaks volumes about the impact he’s made on those students’ lives and their experience at Fredonia. Mark is a very respectable individual, and he’s done great things for the Student Association.”
Aitcheson and Apthorpe are excited about spearheading a new chapter for SA when their tenure starts next semester, and they are hopeful about increasing involvement and participation in SA’s various committees.
“I would say the best way to get involved in SA is to find a role or position in SA that matches what you’re most passionate about,” said Apthorpe. “We have committees centered around sustainability, diversity, public relations, student relations [and] community relations. We have justices for those who like legal jargon and getting into particular cases.”
“If you want to see an improvement on campus and in SA, then the worst thing you can do is to not get involved at all,” said Aitcheson.