By Zac Estrada, News Staff
Some say a good relationship needs open, two-way communication. If his campaign promises are any indication, Sean Maloney might live by that maxim.
SGA’s Executive Vice President said that if elected to the group’s top post, he’ll take steps to improve the spread of information to the student body.
“I think we’ve lost the face-to-face communication that SGA needs,” he said.
Maloney, a political science and economics major from North Attleboro, said he’s proud of his three years of involvement with SGA. He wants to continue being an advocate for students and engage more of them as president.
“I come across a lot of students who say ‘SGA doesn’t represent me,’ or ask, ‘What is SGA?’” Maloney, 21, said. He’s pledging to set up office hours so students can come directly to him to pose questions.
“If any student wants to meet with the president they should be able to,” Maloney said.
Maloney said that process would be more appealing to students instead of having to face the entire SGA during open discussion at one of the group’s regular meetings.
“SGA meetings are intimidating,” he said. “A lot of people don’t understand them.” He said most students do not understand Robert’s Rules of Order, for example.
Besides joining some SGA members in pushing forward revised legislation to streamline and clarify bylaws, Maloney said SGA should become more accessible to students. To that end, he wants to reassess the way senators represent their constituencies.
Perhaps Maloney’s biggest pledge is to bridge the relationship between students and Northeastern’s board of trustees. Slated for the ballot this spring is a referendum, which he drafted, to put a student representative on that board.
“The fact that this group has this control over all of these tuition funds without student representation is unacceptable,” Maloney said. He said the push to get a student connection with the trustees has been difficult. “It looks like it’s going to be a fight,” Maloney said. “But it’s a fight that I’m willing to fight.”
Maloney said running for president hasn’t been on his to-do list from the start, especially after work on current president Ryan Fox’s campaigns that he described as “brutal.”
But after his term in SGA so far, he views this as a logical – and important – step forward.
