Student Government Association appointed sophomore Lianna Abdallah as new chief of staff at their general body meeting Wednesday, Oct. 16, after the unexpected resignation of Lily Lauritson, the previous holder of this position, on Oct. 11. SGA is also gearing up for their fall election, and ballots can be accessed on DeHUB from Oct. 25 to 30, where students can vote for college representatives.
Abdallah has had previous experience in leadership positions, founding her own mental health focused nonprofit organization called “Future Power of the Pack”. Abdallah aims to provide advocacy opportunities for underrepresented voices.
“I’m Palestinian,” Abdallah said. “(I’m hoping to bring) more diversity and bring a stronger voice, especially for Palestinian rights with everything that’s happening right now. It’s really, really important.”
The SGA chief of staff position serves as the coordinator the SGA liaison program and as an ex-officio member of all SGA ad-hoc committees, and assists the chairs of marketing and communication and membership. Additionally, the chief of staff is meant to “fulfill additional duties as deemed necessary by the President, The Cabinet, or as mandated by legislation and governing documents”, according to the revised SGA constitution.
“I’m excited to get to know everyone within the cabinet. And I want to try to figure out my role so I can help encourage connectedness within just the cabinet itself,” Abdallah said. “Communication among us is very important, so maybe I can play a role to help support that.”
SGA sought out an underclassman with capacity for the chief of staff position in order to promote retention, according to student body president Isabella Ali.
“Most of GB (general body), most of our house, are seniors and juniors,” Ali said.“Having fresh sophomores, freshmen, people like Lianna on board will help continue that legacy for the following years. There’ll be people there for people to ask questions … for our new generations of SGA.”
Ali and election operation board chair Margo Halbleib have collaborated to ensure student involvement within this upcoming election by reworking the SGA election website to make it more user-friendly.
“The elections are a great chance to get involved with university decision making,” Ali said. “For the past three years that I’ve been in SGA, I’ve always felt that the application process was very inaccessible. So we worked very hard to make it accessible.”
On Friday, Oct. 11, SGA met with facility operations and student affairs to discuss construction being done to the Lincoln Park campus Quad.
“The reason why (the Quad) was closed for so long is because they used that opportunity to … make lots of repairs,” Ali said.
Some of the construction projects included adding more WiFi access points, charging ports and picnic tables. Repairs were made on the bricks and pavements, and the turf has been resodded. In the general body meeting on Wednesday, SGA discussed a lack of transparency from DePaul administration. Diversity and equity chair Parveen Mundi discussed feeling as though there has been an absence of sufficient updates on Quad construction.
Mundi, a key organizer of the DePaul Divest Coalition and former SGA president, claims this has caused an untrue connection to the spring encampment to surface.
“It’s definitely playing into rhetoric about ‘look at all those students and all that property damage they did in the Quad,’” Mundi said.
SGA is looking into contacting the DePaul administration so they can provide a public explanation of the construction for students and faculty in the hopes of dispelling negative rhetoric against certain groups of students. Another meeting with faculty operations will take place sometime in November.
“I think it would help students understand that it’s not all property damage and they’re actually just making changes to the Quad. I think there’s a big distinction between those,” Mundi said.
Related Stories:
- Cabinet members appointed, membership chair resigns as Student Government Association prepares for fall election.
- ‘There’s a sense of pride that I feel’: Isabella Ali begins year as student body president
- Student Government Association inherits new structure, aims to focus on community and collaboration
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