DePaul’s Student Government Association (SGA) is beginning the winter quarter with fourteen newly elected members in their house of student representatives. These new members will join SGA’s existing representatives as voices for DePaul’s academic colleges and first- and second-year students.
Who are my representatives?
Representatives for Driehaus College of Business:
Isabella Simkus
Sreekar Reddy
Lina Alhasan
Ali Hamid
Representatives for College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences:
Nora Riba
Maryam Naveed
Representatives for Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media:
Noah Schremser
Tinbit Dogisso
Representative for College of Education:
Angelo Battung
Representative for College of Law:
Rawshan Rasha
Representative for First Year Students:
Peyton Deck
Andrew Kaiser
Representatives for Second Year Students:
Jadynn Gilmer
Ahmad Barakat
What happens next?
SGA’s first general body meeting of the winter quarter will take place Wednesday, Jan. 15. This quarter, SGA plans to continue with their food sustainability initiatives. An additional priority is the “Open Books, Open Hearts” campaign, pushing to implement a Gaza Scholars Program at DePaul. This would be a scholarship initiative designed to support Palestinian students by bringing displaced students to DePaul.
Student body president Isabella Ali will be appointing a new position, government and community relations coordinator Leo Dominguez. The goal of this role is to promote campus-wide connections.
“Throughout history, the student government has had poor relationships throughout the DePaul community. I inherited that; that’s not our administration. We’re trying to rebuild connections,” Alisaid.
In another effort to strengthen the community, Ali wants advocacy for international students to be at the forefront of SGA’s agenda.
“DePaul does not make it easy for international students to integrate into the DePaul community. International students face so many struggles in terms of tuition, in terms of employment, in terms of adjusting to just the systems here at DePaul,” Ali said. “I am very optimistic that we will make change and it will be lasting change.”
Ali plans to meet with the administration to discuss student Metra passes. The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is piloting UPass+, a program that includes Metra rides.
“Over 50 percent of DePaul’s student population consists of commuters,” Ali said. “A large portion of commuter students commute through the Metra train, yet we don’t have student Metra passes.”
Sophomore Jadynn Gilmer was one of two write-in candidates for representative for second year students, and she aims to foster a comfortable atmosphere for all students.
“The main thing that I want to get done is to create more opportunities for connections. Last year I lived in the Loop Campus in the UC (University Center), and I just generally felt kind of separated and lonely,” Gilmer said. “I want to be the person who makes more opportunities.”
Gilmer [CQ] hopes to put more effort into bridging DePaul’s two campuses and create a heightened sense of community.
“I’m here, I’m excited, and I’m ready to fight for them. I’m ready to do all the work,” Gilmer said.
Representative for the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Nora Riba wants to improve DePaul’s mid-quarter reflection system.
“I am very interested in enhancing and expanding academic resources at the College of Liberal Arts and also bridging communication gaps between faculty and students,” Riba said. “I really just want to serve as the voice for students to have their concerns heard.”
Isabella Simkus also wants to emphasize stronger communication between administration and students in her new role as representative for Driehaus College of Business. She decided to get involved with SGA following last year’s encampment.
“There’s a lot of entrepreneurs in the College of Business. A lot of students take on small businesses,” Simkus said. “I want to see if there’s a chance, working with the entrepreneurship programs on campus — is there a way we can kind of help students?”
At the last general body meeting of fall quarter, SGA held a new member retreat for newly elected members of the house of representatives. They wanted to promote community building and to conduct training on how to uphold DePaul’s mission through their roles as representatives.
“The goal of this quarter’s fall retreat was to walk our members, including our newly elected members, through any logistics they might not have known about, how to engage with the student body in a positive and helpful way and brainstorm what projects members wanted to begin working on,” chair of marketing and communications Kiersten Riedford said.
The retreat included lessons on diplomacy, mediation, media training and goal setting. Members also received mission and ministry training with staff from the Division of Mission and Ministry office.
“I am excited to support the reps through their initiatives and also internally help organize SGA so that in the years to come it is a better transfer process,” SGA vice president Samara Smith said.
DePaul student organizations that are seeking SGA support should contact SGA through email [email protected] or by direct messaging the SGA Instagram @sgadepaul.
“Our representatives will be hard at work over the next quarter going to student organization meetings and events so we can understand the needs of students by directly communicating with them,” Riedford said.
Related stories:
- SGA fall election is underway, voting ends Oct. 30 at midnight
- Cabinet members appointed, membership chair resigns as Student Government Association prepares for fall election.
- SGA appoints new chief of staff and prepares for upcoming election
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