Christina Puglia, the new president of the Student Government Association (SGA), has no intentions of having an uneventful senior year at the College. Year after year, SGA takes charge of a large portion of the decisions made for the campus. This year is bound to follow that pattern with Puglia in the head seat.
Puglia has many goals for SGA, especially for her position. She went from executive vice president to president after the elected president, Nadia Gorski, resigned.
"Over the SGA Executive board retreat in July, Nadia [Gorski] resigned for personal reasons," Puglia said. "There are no hard feelings. We're still good friends."
To Puglia, their professional past in SGA is separate from their personal relationship as friends and housemates.
"I love the SGA and I'm looking forward to represent the students," Puglia said, an SGA member since her freshman year. Puglia said that she is "nervous and excited" about her new responsibilities as president.
To Puglia, the job of SGA president is divided into two parts. The first responsibility of the job includes overseeing the VP's and trustees of the SGA, and the second part involves taking on an authoritative role by working with the faculty and meeting with College President R. Barbara Gitenstein.
This year, Puglia plans on making a few changes in SGA. In previous years, she thought that the senate felt somewhat isolated from the executive board and that it wasn't given enough power. She hopes to repair this rift by giving the senate the power they deserve while she and the executive board will have more power to mediate and oversee.
Puglia also hopes to improve the communication between the SGA committees, which will simplify SGA meetings. In the past, meetings can be very time consuming, as committees spend much time reviewing the week's business. An improved agenda that is handed out at each meeting now lists what each committee is doing on the back side of the paper. Puglia hopes that this will cut down on excessive meeting time.
In addition, Puglia aims to plan more events for SGA so the group gets to know each other better. Ideally, this will make SGA a close-knit group that focuses on teamwork.
"We're not the US Senate," Puglia said. "We're the SGA."
To her, SGA is a very important organization on campus, and she, like everyone in SGA, is there because they choose to be there. Puglia feels that it is recognized as a hardworking but fun student organization, and she has every intention of keeping it that way.
