HCXU sat down with Johnny Srsich, Bri Boyce, and Cole Stautberg of JBC to find out more about their campaign platform for Student Government executive board.
What clubs are you all involved with?
Johnny: For me, I’m only in club Ultimate Frisbee for right now because I chose to step away from my other clubs in order to give my full attention to the campaign.
Bri: I’m in the Student Alumni Association, Delta Sigma Pi, the Peer Review board, I was a member of the Core Team for Manresa, the Dean’s Student Advisory Board for the William’s College of Business, and the HR Club.
Cole: Educators for justice, a site leader for Alternative Breaks, X-Change, and Community Action Day, and lastly I’m on the Board of Xavier Christmas.
What are your campaigns “hot” issues? What do you hope to bring to the Xavier Student Body?
Johnny: For us, really, we actually shrunk down our platform from what it could have been because we realized we will only be in office for a little over a year. So we decided to a couple months at the start of our time in office to bolstering what SGA really is, setting the budgets for all of the clubs, and also getting the University Committee set. After that, we have decided to spend the rest of our time in office dedicating our time to our passion projects, which is why our slogan is “Easy as 1, 2, 3.” For me, my passion project is to set up the hotline for students who have experienced sexual assault, which we have confirmed is possible. It will take a lot of work, but it will definitely go towards making our campus better.
Bri: For me, I would like to improve student’s food options over break. A lot of students who stay on campus over the major breaks like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring Break don’t have a whole lot of options as far as eating on campus, and like myself a lot of students don’t have cars on campus leaving them to eat Easy-Mac, ramen, and other stuff like that which you really shouldn’t eat all the time. So I have talked to the higher-ups in the caf to work out a plan where students can use their meal swipes to purchase pre-made meals that they can stock up on for those long breaks.
Cole: My big thing is community outreach. We want to start a committee that will include North Avondale Neighborhood Association, Evanston Community Council, Norwood City Council, Police Chiefs from XUPD and Norwood PD, along with SGA Executives and administrators from Xavier. What we would like to do is get everyone in a room together about once a month to talk about what we can do for the community and what the community can do for us. Through that we want to start sponsoring programs to bring the outside community in. We have a lot of programs where we go out and serve the community, but not enough programs where we have people from the surrounding communities come in and see what Xavier is all about.
What’s your favorite thing about the Xavier Community?
Johnny: I really like how the student commitment talks about how everyone is a unique individual, and how we all come together, and that we truly are All For One and One For All. It would be one thing to just say that and believe that we do all that, but it’s something else entirely to actually act out those ideals.
Bri: The people. The people uplift everyone. I came from a small town in New Jersey, didn’t know anybody, but having the friend’s that I have made and the support that I have had, has uplifted me enough to reach my goals.
Cole: I think it’s amazing what the Xavier students are capable of, and the fact that we can come together to develop these amazing student life programs. Just seeing the way we interact with the community and interact with the world, I think it is something very special.
Bri, as an African American woman on a predominantly white campus, what do you look to add the Student government, as far as perspective?
Bri: I think my perspective here is different from a lot of my counterparts on campus. I feel like I add a different kind of knowledge, and a different kind of outlook. That’s not to say my outlook is better than anybody else’s, I just think we all need different aspects, and different people’s thoughts and I believe I can bring that to SGA.
Cole, as the underclassman on your ticket, do you feel at all intimidated by other upperclassmen, on your ticket and on the other tickets as well?
Cole: I actually don’t. Most of my classes have a lot of upperclassmen. I think my first year I may have been a little bit intimidated, but now I see myself as a peer to students of all grade levels, not just my own. I also do a lot of clubs and organizations where I am the site leader, and a lot of times I have upperclassmen in the groups I am leading so I am very comfortable in this role.
Johnny, you’ve been involved with student government since your freshman year. What are things you’d like to see more of in terms of involvement from not just the Exec’s but all of SGA?
Johnny: It’s definitely changed a lot since my first year in terms of what people know about SGA, and for me being on the inside and having seen it, I get excited when I see that people are starting to see who we are, and what we do for Xavier as a whole. At the end of the day though, it’s still not known by a lot of students, and doesn’t have the respect I believe it deserves. That’s just because there really hasn’t been that much leadership within to help the younger senators grow and suggest and participate in projects. ZRE has done a great job fostering the support of the committee chairs, and now having seen how much it helps to have an executive team that supports the committee chairs, and see what that does for the students, I just want to be able to go directly to the senators and work directly with the senate so that way the executives and senate aren’t as branched off as it is right now.
If you had to pick one food item from the caf to eat for the rest of your time at Xavier, what would it be?
Johnny: Oreo Fluff from the dessert section. I would eat 12 of those a day if I could.
Bri: Chicken Tortilla soup
Cole: That’s tough, but I gotta go with the Philly Cheese Steak sandwich from the sandwich line.