Name: Fortune Onwuzuruike
Major: Health Informatics
Classification: Junior
Hometown: Marietta, GA
Position Running For: President of the Student Government Association
What makes you qualified for this position?
“What makes me qualified is ever since I came to Georgia State in 2013, for the past three years I’ve been around Presidents such as Marcus Kerizan, Christian Hill, Andrew White, Lanier Henson, Teara Mayfield, Sebastian Parra whether its from SGA or volunteering, or just being at service for students. I’m currently the Vice President of Student Services so I would say I’m very familiar with the Student Government Association (SGA) and how SGA works. For the last three years I’ve gained quality experience by being apart of SGA. I think all the candidates are great opponents with different leadership skills to offer however I’m the best fit because I’ve dealt with a larger population of students. Some of my opponents may deal with 2,000 or maybe 20,000 students but I’ve represented 32,000 students here on the Atlanta campus. So besides quality experience with dealing with the largest population, I would also like to say I’ve accomplished everything from my platform last year. If you look at the Signal, newspaper around this time last year, you would see I reached all of the goals I set by December of 2015, so with that being said you can be confident that I will accomplish my goals from my platform this time around. Everything I want to accomplish this academic school year will be accomplished. Lastly, I’m a personable and understanding person and to be a great president you have to have both of those qualities.”
What would you say is your biggest accomplishment on campus?
“My biggest accomplishment through the Student Government Association is completing the design of the Commuter Meal Plan. I would also say my biggest accomplishment is making sure every student is accounted for, from commuters to those who stay on campus, to different diversity organizations and more importantly the population that most commonly gets overlooked which is the low income students or homeless students. Students would be surprised that we actually have low-income students and homeless students that are actually trying to figure out a place to stay or how to buy a meal to get through the day. Making sure these students are accounted for by partnering with Panther Pantry. My committee and I donate a canned good or other foods like crackers, peanut butter or bread each senate meeting to give to those in dire need of resources and food.”
What are your stances? Explain your platform.
“One of my goals is to become one university. We have six different campuses and I want us all to become one university, one institution, one Panther family so we can all be on the same page. I want to make sure we continue to get quality education so our degrees can prepare us for our careers of tomorrow. I would like to partner with Athletics to extend the Organization of the Game opportunity we can engage our whole student body, not just on our Atlanta campus but to the organizations on our Perimeter campuses as well to be sure students come out and get those lasting traditions and that school spirit going. I’d be working to increase campus safety, and increasing resources for campus safety. This would be the number one thing I would focus on as it seems to be a very high issue right now. Also, something we’ve discussed ever since I’ve been apart of SGA is advocating for a 24-hour study space or extending the library times even longer. These goals would eventually lead to RESULTS. Every letter in RESULTS stands for something.
R – Require an increased security presence to ensure student safety
E – Engaging the student body in athletic events
S – Strategically increasing sustainability throughout the school
U – Uniting all six campuses into the #PantherFamily
L – Landing greater academic success through promoting academic programs and resources
T – Traditions that will be formed and last forever
S – Student services being transformed and expanded on.”
What would you like voters to know about you?
“I would like them to know that I’m passionate about the Student Government Association. I have a lot to offer and I have offered a lot to the Student Government Association. I represent the interest of the whole student body. I just want to continue to bring new ideas and expand on past accomplishments to make sure they are not forgotten by any new administration. I wont lie and say consolidating with GPC will be easy, but with me being the next Student Body President, it’ll be smoother transition just with my experience and drive to get those RESULTS. Voters should always know I’m a driven individual trying to get the work done day in and day out. If the student body doesn’t see me best fit I’ll still be serving them some way some how so vote for me April 5th-7th and get RESULTS!”