The 2013 Student Body Elections Debate and Reception was held Feb. 18 in the Marshall Student Center Oval Theater. Moderated by current student body president Brian Goff, the debate served as an arena over current and future campus policies between the Lockwood/Agosto and Warmke/Sandoval candidate tickets.

The debate was organized into three segments: vice presidential debate, presidential debate and open-floor Q-and-A session with both tickets. Debate topics were further split into “quiz” style questions, format and policy questions and individually tailored questions.

The first campaign debate of the 2013 Student Body Elections was held Feb. 13 in the Marshall Student Center Beef ‘O’ Brady’s. The debate was moderated and broadcast on-air by Bulls Radio.

Presidential candidates Taylor Lockwood and William Warmke, both studying political science, shared their opinions on USF’s big issues, taking stances on topics like student involvement, voter turnout, student parking and student organizations.

USF Student Government (SG) hosted the third in a series of five annual budget info sessions on Nov. 28 in MSC 4200.  Ali Antar, chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations and Audits, presented the process for applying for funding with co-chairman Adam Aldridge.

USF Student Government is calling out to all inspired students, artists and designers to conceptualize a memorial statue for the Fallen Bull Memorial Statue Design Contest.

Few students attended the first SG Town Hall meeting Thursday, where SG leaders discussed initiatives and answered students’ concerns over parking during the Florence and the Machine concert earlier this week and discussed the issue of underrepresentation of medical students in the senate .

Brian Goff, student body president, and George Papadeas, student body vice president, noted transparency was one of their main platforms while running earlier in the spring. The Town Hall meetings are just one of the initiatives enacted to help them achieve this.

During the Student Government senate meeting on Tuesday, the youth education coordinator for the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections, Ron Hasty, spoke about the importance of registering to vote. The SG senate also confirmed Patrick J. Giambelluca as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

The USF Student Government senate meeting took place on Tuesday, led by Jeff Gao, senate president. He confirmed Matthew Milton as the new director of SAFE Team after the usual pledge of allegiance and roll call.

April 24 at 4 p.m. in the MSC Ballroom marked the time and place for the induction of the 53rd Administration of USF’s Student Government.

The student body president-elect, Brian Goff, and vice president-elect, George Papadeas, beamed at the inauguration ceremony as they were passed the torch, launching them into a new year of governing more than 40,000 students.

Family, friends and faculty members gathered to support the new members as they head into office and say farewell to the former student leaders.

Equipped with a variety of gourmet finger foods, the attendees took their seats to listen to individuals such as USF’s president, Dr. Judy Genshaft, dean of students, Dr. Kevin Banks and vice president of Student Affairs, Dr. Jennifer Meningall, along with several others.

The legislative branch of Student Government elected the Senate president and chairs for six committees for the 53rd term on April 17.

After a near four hour meeting, mechanical engineering senior Jeff Gao was elected Senate President.

According to Student Government’s website, the Senate president serves as the head of the legislative branch and is responsible for overseeing all operations and components of the Senate. The president’s duties include representing the Senate before all others, overseeing and managing all senators and acting as chair for all Senate meetings.

Political science major Adam Aldridge and public health major Abdool Aziz were also on the ticket for Senate President.

Each nominee was given five minutes to present themselves and explain their qualifications for the position and what their goals would be if they were elected.

After the presentations, the student Senate asked the nominees questions before requiring them to leave the room. Then, students were able to endorse a nominee if they chose, explaining why the chosen nominee should receive the support of others.

The election ended with two votes for Aldridge, seven for Aziz and 35 for Gao.

Gao hopes to reach out to students and organizations, create an educational workshop series for senators and live-stream senate meetings, which are generally held every Tuesday at 6 p.m.

The six elected positions:

President Pro-Tempore: Scott Sandoval

Chair of the Committee on Rules: Lindsay Ruskan

Chair of Committee on Appropriations: Ali Antar

Char of Judiciary Ethics Committee:  Shyam Patel

Chair of Committee on Special Funding: Adam Aldridge

Chair of Committee on University and Governmental Affairs: Jean Cocco

The chairs and Senate president will take office May 7.

Feb. 23 last night in the Marshall Student Center Oval Theater the candidates squared off for the second Student Government presidential debate.

 If you attended the previous debate at Beef ‘O’ Brady’s, you might have experienced some déjà vu.  The moderator provided open-ended questions, which gave no room for the candidates to differentiate.  The debate became a conversation between candidates with “Groundhog Day”-like responses. 

Questions were asked, generally, to three candidates at a time, in which they were given one minute to respond.  In addition, the moderator told candidates when they had 10 seconds remaining.