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Syracuse University’s Student Association has been renamed to the Student Government Association after over 10% of undergraduates participated in the association’s spring elections, passing the constitutional referendum for the renaming.

German Nolivos, Janese Fayson and Alexis Leach will serve as the next SGA president, vice president and comptroller, respectively. The three all ran under the “Vision For All” campaign. This will be Nolivos’ second year as president.

Over 2,000 students participated in this spring’s general elections, representing roughly 14% of the undergraduate population and doubling last spring’s 743 ballots.

Leading up to the elections, SGA implemented several incentives encouraging students to vote, like free tickets to University Union’s Block Party for the sorority or fraternity with the highest voter participation.

Nolivos said students involved in Greek life accounted for over 50% of voters.

“It’s just an honor and a privilege for our administration to be able to be the one that was able to make (the name change) happen,” Nolivos said. “We are technically not a government because we don’t have real legislation powers…but at the end of the day, we are the government because our job is to represent everyone and to be the advocate for the students.”

Since launching his first executive campaign last spring, Nolivos has made student participation one of his main priorities after he was unsatisfied with the association’s inability to pass the resolution over three consecutive election cycles. The referendum will also change other constitutional bylaws to increase mandatory office hours for SGA members and transfer the role of managing SGA’s internal budget from the treasurer to the chief of staff.

Caroline Ridge, SGA’s Board of Elections chair, said the association’s next goal is to grow the candidate pool in future elections. Despite the referendum’s passage, many candidates ran in uncontested races, including all three executives. Ridge also called on current assembly members to run for more time-consuming leadership roles, as she said competitive elections yield better leaders.

“It’s sad to see that we were the only people running,” Nolivos said. “I like to think that having competition is a good thing. Having people challenging your ideas and challenging the way that you’re doing things is democracy at the end of the day.”

Nolivos, Fayson and Leach each received over 95% of the vote.

While Ridge said she was happy with the increase in turnout, SGA hopes to see more than 14% of students voting in its elections. She also said the association would implement this spring’s voting initiatives again after they yielded success this semester.

“Every year, (we want to) get even more people to vote so we can get more representation amongst everybody at Syracuse, not just the small number of people who do vote in the election,” Ridge said. “Ten percent out of such a big student body for undergraduates that we have at Syracuse is really not representative of the entire student body.”

Nolivos said the association will focus on promoting SGA’s new name to students as the semester comes to a close. He said the assembly will evaluate the finalists for its new logo during Monday’s SGA meeting.

The 2025 SGA electees are listed below:

• Valeria Serrano to the position of assembly representative for the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
• Tim Wong to the position of assembly representative for the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
• Olivia Mai to the position of assembly representative for the Martin J. Whitman School of Management
• Bryce Hazen to the position of assembly representative for the Martin J. Whitman School of Management
• Sophie Mays to the position of assembly representative for the School of Architecture
• Max Lachut to the position of assembly representative for the College of Arts and Sciences
• Izel De Jesús to the position of assembly representative for the College of Arts and Sciences
• Robert D’Orso to the position of assembly representative for the College of Arts and Sciences
• Beckam Polis to the position of assembly representative for the College of Arts and Sciences
• Hannah Colón Silva to the position of assembly representative for the College of Arts and Sciences
• Gianmarco Pretto to the position of assembly representative for the College of Engineering and Computer Science
• Annika Halvorson to the position of assembly representative for the College of Engineering and Computer Science
• Katha Strenk to the position of assembly representative for the School of Information Studies
• Emily Castillo-Melean to the position of assembly representative for the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
• Sadie Brown to the position of assembly representative for the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
• Nana Akua Osei-Wusu to the position of assembly representative for the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
• Saybah Kolee to the position of assembly representative for the FALK College of Sport and Human Dynamics
• Megan Halsey to the position of assembly representative for the College of Visual and Performing Arts
• Tim Phelps to the position of assembly representative for SUNY-ESF
• Scott Newman to the position of assembly representative for SUNY-ESF
• Fiona Nganou to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Riga Czarkowski to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Tommy DaSilva to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Meghavarshini Iska to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Santiago Sanabria to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Alice Jenkins to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Priyanka Anoop to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Ka’Nya Nelson to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Kennedy King to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Mason Rosenbaum to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Ali Attia to the position of at-large assembly representative
• Maximillian Thornton to the position of at-large assembly representative

Published on April 6, 2025 at 9:36 pm