After former Student Government Association President Travis Tillis’ sudden resignation, Shelby Sward has stepped in as acting president.
Sward said that SGA plans to “muscle through,” and she is excited to take on this role.
She explained that the reason she has taken “acting” in front of her title is to show that she was not elected for that position by student body. “I really feel like if you are going to have the title ‘president,’ then you really should have been elected, but we’re kind of in this transition stage, and we have had a lot of things going on,” Sward said.
She explained that although there are reservations that come with taking on a big role, she is really happy to take this opportunity of leadership and is pleased with her team. “I feel like everyone in the team really has a lot to offer.
“There’s a lot of intelligence, and talent, and creativity. So I’m excited, but obviously it’s a big role to try to take on.”
She said that her main concern is to do a good job and ensure that she is not doing the students a disservice. “Either way, I’m going to show up with a smile on my face and just try to do my best, because it’s all I can do.”
Sward said that some main focuses for her this semester will be pursuing the new constitution and bylaws that she hopes to get passed, the tobacco-free initiative, “Habits of Mind” – an initiative by BC professors to promote good study habits – and any student concerns.
“Obviously students are our main priority, so anything that the students come to us and say that they want us to take care of, that’s also our main focus,” she said. Sward invited any students with concerns to bring them to SGA, stating, “[Students] can come to us with anything. There isn’t always necessarily something that we can do right away, a lot of times all we can do is advocate.”
Sward explained that sometimes student concerns aren’t always brought to light because SGA does have to go through administration, which sometimes can take a lot of time.
“Sometimes students think that we don’t really do much, but there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into pursuing what [students] come to us with,” she said.
“Our mission isn’t just to help the students of this semester, our mission is to help students who continue to come for the next however many years.”
According to Sward, SGA mainly plans to move forward and be positive in light of the transgressions that took place last semester.
Said transgressions were in regard to alcohol and drug-related infractions, leading to three executives and seven senators being removed from office while another executive underwent censure and was placed on probation.
“We’re really focusing on looking ahead. We’re really trying to let students know, ‘we’re aware of what happened, we’re not trying to hide it or anything like that,’ but we don’t want to focus on it because that’s just going to continue the stigma that SGA already has,” she said. “So we’d really be doing ourselves a disservice to focus on the past.”
She mentioned that SGA has adopted a phrase, “Renegade rises,” which she said symbolizes the idea of a phoenix rising out of ashes, explaining that they understand that SGA had transgressions, but SGA has to continue to move forward and function, saying: “The show must go on.”