Kalista Cherry and Meaghan Irving, already active participants in Brockport Student Government, are hoping to take their work a step further and are vying for the positions of president and vice president.
Cherry is a political science major with a double minor in earth science and international studies. She’s been involved with BSG for three years and is currently the acting treasurer. She’s also a student manager at BASC and is a peer mentor.
She says making the jump from treasurer to president will help her step in as the lead role and bring together the community more — within BSG and the student body.
Irving is a double major in criminal justice and psychology, and transferred to SUNY Brockport in 2019. As soon as she transferred she joined BSG as a senator and worked her way up to interim president and vice president, and is now a parliamentarian. A few of her other extracurricular activities include Greek life, honor societies, and the Brockport dance team.
Cherry and Irving are looking forward to the fall when COVID-19 guidelines are hopefully more relaxed and the campus can return to how it was pre-covid. They’re already thinking about events for students and ensuring proper funding to on-campus clubs and organizations.
One of their priorities is informing students of the student activities fee and what it covers. The fee is up for a vote every two years, and this coming year is one of them. They’re urging students to say yes to the activities fee. It provides funding for clubs and events BSG holds for the students. This includes things like bingo nights, homecoming, Brocktoberfest and more.
Irving says one thing she wants to do if the two are elected is to restructure the advocacy department of BSG. She says this could help the campus improve their efforts in striving for more inclusivity, equity and diversity.
So why should you vote for Cherry and Irving?
Here’s what they had to say:
“We have organizational skills on our side, we have history on our side, we have a drive and a compassion for students,” said Irving. “We want to produce more but we also don’t want to stray too far from the past because we don’t want to lose the meaning of BSG which is ‘by the students for the students’. But we also need to restructure BSG to then help restructure the campus. We just hope that students will see that and how much we love the organization and support us for the upcoming year.”
“And we want student to know that their voices can be heard and they will be heard with us. And their voices and questions and concerns will be brought to these college-wide big crucial conversations on campus environment,” said Cherry.
Cherry and Irving are running against Justin Crawford and Nia Robertson.
Voting begins April 12 and runs through April 17. You can vote on myBrockport.
You can view the full interview aired by Talon TV here.
