Final Results of the 2020-2021 SGA Election

The Student Government Association of Frostburg State University held an election for the 2020-2021 school year between March 25 and 26, 2020. The election was held online, via Bobcat Connect, as it has been for several years. Therefore, FSU’s move to online-only instruction as a result of COVID-19 did not interfere with the planned election.

The results, announced by SGA Administrative Assistant Kathi Perkins are below.

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President: Noah DeMichele

Vice President: Jessica Thayer

Treasurer: Kristian Robinette

On Campus Senators: Samuel Bankole, Dylan Hill, Lyric Mitchell, Jacey Nelson, Ismeral Reyes, Jacob Sears, and Ariyana Ward

Off Campus Senators: Delanie Blubaugh, Chris Escobar, Thomas Forrest, Lauren Nordquist, Trekia Perkins, and Josh Trenum

At-Large Senators: MaryAnn Calderon, Madison Davis, Jenna Griffith, Michael Hollingsworth, Jasmine LaPrade, Allison Russo, and Jericho Yantz

A complete breakdown of votes cast is available here.

A total of 308 votes were cast in the SGA election, representing approximately 9.9% of the 3,110 full-time undergraduates at Frostburg.

This percentage is consistent with last year’s participation rate. A total of 335 votes were cast in the 2019-2020 SGA election, which represented 10.0% of the 3,338 full-time undergraduates.

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In the 2019-2020 school year, the SGA Senate was a body of 26 students. However, in February 2020, SGA voted to expand so as to include a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, thus swelling to a total of 32 Senators.

According to Perkins, there are still open seats on the SGA Senate for the 2020-2021 school year. She reports, “3 On Campus, 4 Off-Campus, and 1 At-Large Senator positions are still available.” Furthermore, “since not enough students ran for the seats, we will fill the remaining open seats by interview at the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester,” she says.

The number of total vacancies after the most recent election, eight positions, means that 25% of the 32-person Senate will be determined by interview.

According to the 2019-2020 SGA Constitution, vacant positions are filled “from the proper constituency by the Governance Committee, with the approval of the Student Senate.”

In addition to a large number of vacancies, all Executive Board races were uncontested. This includes the office of President, Vice-President, and Treasurer.

This is not uncommon, however.

Perkins says “the last election that had competition for the offices of President and Vice President was 2012.”

This is due, in large part, to the necessary qualifications a student must have in order to appear on the ballot. To run for President, a student much be from the “junior or senior class who has an overall GPA of at least 3.0 and has completed a minimum of one semester within the Executive Board of the Student Government Association at Frostburg State University.”

The Executive Board consists of the officers and chairs of the Student Senate and includes the President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary, and Chairs of the Governance, Senate Finance, Student Affairs, Public Relations, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committees.

Chairs of Committees are appointed by the President of SGA with approval of the Student Senate. Therefore, for an SGA Senator to become eligible to run for President, they must have once been appointed by the President of SGA or have been elected Treasurer in a previous school year. As a result, few Senators meet the necessary qualifications to run for the highest office.

The 2020-2021 SGA Senate will be sworn in by out-going President Jenna Puffinburger at the SGA banquet on April 23rd. It is unclear whether this will be held in-person or virtually. At that time, President-elect DeMichele will select a Secretary from the pool of elected senators and will appoint chairs to the five senate committees.

Correction: A previous version of this article reported that the qualifications to become Vice-President of SGA were the same as those necessary to become President. This is not the case. Instead, the SGA Constitution says that to be eligible for Vice President, a student “must have completed a minimum of one year on the Student Senate of the Student Government Association or a minimum of one semester on the Executive Board of the Student Government Association at Frostburg State University.”

Correction: Vice President Benjamin Forrest offered this update to the selection of Secretary process: “The Secretary is appointed from the student Senate, not from the At Large Senators, as you state in the article. Appointing from the number of At Large Senators was the case in the past, however, the first resolution I sponsored as Vice President this year changed it to be from any constituency. (I don’t believe this edit has been made to the online copy of the Constitution yet, but it was tabled at the first meeting of the Senate in May and unanimously passed at the second meeting of the Senate when we came back in September.)” A copy of Forrest’s resolution can be found here.