SGA President

Daniela Lopez Lopez ’20

Hello everybody, I am Daniela Lopez Lopez (aka Daniela Lopez squared), class of 2020. I am a native Houstonian, a Posse scholar, and am running to be your next SGA President. My activism began when I participated in a national action to lobby for a Clean Dream Act on Capital Hill with United We Dream. Since then I have gone on to participate in various local and national campaigns to advocate for undocumented and immigrant communities. I have brought this activism onto campus by being part of the founding board of the BiCo Migrant Rights Coalition, as well as by leading several on-campus initiatives aimed at making BMC a more welcoming home for undocumented students prior to the club’s founding. These experiences (as well as others) have let me lead and be a part of various meetings with President Cassidy and her staff, other members of the administration, the Board of Trustees, and US  elected officials and their staff. Through this extensive experience, I have learned how to recognize and resist manipulative techniques that people in positions of power use to prevent being undermined and held accountable for their harmful policies and actions. This has made me well equipped to represent the student body’s demands and concerns in an accurate and unwavering way at future meetings with President Cassidy and the Board of Trustees.

In my time here I have held many other roles on campus, including: being a tour guide with Admissions, Songs Mistress, and Philosophy Major Rep. One of my most treasured experiences however has been my time spent as the co-founder and President of the Bryn Mawr Speech and Debate Team, where I have gained the necessary skills to effectively communicate with and argue for my community.

As a first generation, low income, latinx, queer student, it is most important for me approach leadership from a place of service and dedication to community, as it has been service-oriented leaders and community builders that have taught me to see the beauty and power my marginalized identities hold.

As your next SGA president, I plan to:

• Uplift marginalized student’s voices in SGA in general, as well as in meetings with admin and the Board of Trustees.
• Ensure that the mission and initiatives led by SGA reflect the desires of the greater student body.
• Continue the work of past SGA presidents to make SGA less daunting, more inclusive, and accessible for all students.
• Collaborate with student leaders, the Chair of Social Justice and Advocacy, and the SGA Archivist to ensure the history of student activism on campus is well documented.
• Work on measures to ensure credit is given to students whose labor and activism greatly benefits the school (and preventing the admin for taking credit for this labor).

I am happy to see multiple people running for this position, as after all, SGA is meant to be an empowering place for students to speak up and be heard. I hope I have earned you vote and confidence in me as the next SGA President!

Rita Sabri ’22

Hello everyone, My name is Rita Sabri, I am class of 2022, and I am from Morocco ,I’ve been nominated to be the SGA president, and when receiving the e-mail about whether I should accept the nomination or not, I told myself, let give it a shot. So, why not ? So, why am I running for this position ? My friends and my entourage in general have always told me that I am a people person, I believe that I am social person who is comfortable with demanding what she wants, and I can be pretty good at receiving what I ask for. Being in this position definitely requires someone who is willing not only to talk, but to listen, because the student body is what makes Bryn Mawr what Bryn Mawr is, an institution that must listen to its student. The SGA president won’t be only me, I won’t be the only one who speaks. If elected, I am going to be the voice of all the students together, the representative of the minorities, the forgotten, the one who love this place and the one who are thirsty for a change so they can feel home. The administration can be tough, they reject or post pone what students request for years, and they try to do it for a 4 years loop. Therefore, the students who are gone, who fought for changes, rights or other, stop demanding, and things are forgotten and brought up again with a new student committee. If I am the SGA president, I will try to assure that what students fought in the past years, is not hidden in the archives, and we are not only going to rise by beginning new changes but also by continuing. I am seeking for a better record of what the students has achieved so far, so they get the recognition that they deserve, I am seeking for the acknowledgment of the administration to their students, what they have done, what they will do, what we will do. I am running for this position because I believe that being a Sophomore next semester will not be a burden but rather an advantage,.Even though I have only experienced a few months at Bryn Mawr comparing to other candidates, I will grow while being in SGA for 4 years—hopefully. The longer we are in this position, the better we do in it. By accepting a fresh person like me, I am more likely to be experienced growing up. Also, I love this place, I love Bryn Mawr and I want everyone to love it like I do. This place has lots of flaws and I want to help change it to make it better, I am not searching for perfection, I am searching for a comfortable environment for everyone. I am ready to be open minded to all the proposition that my fellow comrades will give me, I am ready to deal with an administration that will, and I know it will , respond with disdain. I am running for this position because I believe that I am strong enough to endorse it, I believe in myself and I need you to believe in me, Thank you, Rita Sabri – 4865596 – rsabri@brynmawr.edu – 609-608-2776 –

Tori Hatchell ’20

Hello! My name is Tori Hatchell, Class of 2020, and I am running for SGA President. Currently, I am a co-Dorm President in Merion, one of the Junior Major Representatives for the Bryn Mawr History Department, and I also work in Canaday Library at the Circulation Desk. I’ve learned a lot this year from being a Dorm President, especially through attending SGA Meetings regularly, and I’ve seen all of the hard work that the current E-Board has put into making Bryn Mawr a better place, and I want to continue that.

If elected SGA President, I would work with the E-Board and other members of SGA as well as the greater student body, the faculty and administration to make our community a better place. I would provide support for those students who are pushing for change within our community, as I believe that it is the E-Board and SGA’s role to work for and support the students who are raising their voices to express their concerns and call for change on our campus. I look forward to serving alongside the E-Board in working with and for Bryn Mawr students on creating a community and institution where everyone feels safe and supported.

Thank you for your consideration, and if you have any questions, please feel free to email me at thatchell@brynmawr.edu

 

SGA Vice President

Junie Sok ’21

Hello! My name is Junie Sok, and I am running for SGA Vice President. As a member of the Class of 2021, I have enjoyed being involved and learning about the community through the Appointments Committee. This committee has taught me the importance of collaborative work when it came time to interview potential applicants. In which, I was able to solidify those skills and ideally use them as SGA Vice President. Through the support of my peers, I hope to make SGA more accessible and even more transparent. I would like to stand back and for once have the voices of the students on campus be heard, but also be the one to aid in making their solutions become a reality. In terms of accessibility, I possibly would like to redesign the SGA office and aim to make it a more open space for individuals to visit and truly get to know all E-Board members. I believe it is important to open up dialogue for students to express their concerns and I would love to see this grow through the appointments committee and other groups on campus. If I am elected, I look forward to using my position to work with not only the E-Board, but other students to demand and work towards building a better institute that feels both safe and comfortable. Despite how daunting the role and expectations may be, I am more than ready to put up a fight and push forward through each encounter that crosses my path. Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

SGA Secretary

Chloe Liu ’21

Hi Everyone,

My name is Chloe Liu and I’m running for SGA secretary. For the past two years I have had the pleasure of being a co-class president for the class of 2021. The exposure has allowed me to recognize the influence that SGA has on Bryn Mawr’s community, and how it can be used for the benefits of students. I’m running for secretary because I want to be more involved in SGA and I believe that my experience, drive, and strong communication skills make me an ideal candidate.

Sophia Bokhari ’20

Hi! I’m Sophia (she/her), class of 2020, and I’m running for SGA Secretary! The most important thing the SGA Secretary does is manage communication. That means sending out emails, making sure people know what’s going, and getting back to people. Through my time at Bryn Mawr, I cannot overstate the importance of sending out emails and maintaining contact with people. I’ve done a lot of communications work in the secretary and publicist positions I’ve held in clubs I’ve been a part of. I know what’s it like to feel like you’re really being heard and how important that is. That’s why I’m running for secretary. I hope that as secretary I can make sure people feel heard and welcomed to SGA. I want people to know that they are part of SGA and their voices and concerns are important.

 

SGA Archivist

Laney Myers ’20

My name is Laney Myers (Class of 2020 she/her) As SGA Archivist my priority will be to uplift and preserve the narratives of historically excluded folks and groups on campus.

Some of my goals for this position include initiatives to set up an SGA-specific archive that can be accessed by students more easily than Special Collections. The fact that the entire student body turns over every four years is a huge barrier to passing on information, especially around activism and social justice issues on campus, so setting up a living archive is meant to support that kind of work and labor.

I would also like to be more expansive of the types of materials we aim to collect into that archive, by spearheading that can be replicated in the future. For example, I would want to set up a collection program, for clubs and AMO groups on campus to enter their ephemera—posters, flyers, and photos—into an SGA archive, which can then be accessed by future classes for inspiration. Collecting the stories of SGA officers is especially crucial at this moment when SGA is changing so profoundly, and I’d like to document that as closely as I can. The SGA archive will hopefully extend further back into the past. I would like to set up programs to reach out to alum and specifically alum of color to collect their stories of activism on campus. This would require a coordinated effort to tap into alum networks as well.

As a member of the Telling Histories Working Group, which has sought in the past to involve students and SGA especially into its initiatives, I will work closely with members of faculty and administration to further these aims. Specifically, the THWG hopes to install permanent media screens in Old Library that will, hopefully, be a way to center the voices of AMOs and marginalized community members, alongside telling the full history of racism in Bryn Mawr’s institutional history. In the fall I will also be working on a Praxis Independent Study, in connection with THWG, to collect the oral histories of the most recent wave of campus activism surrounding the name of Old Library.

Ruby Irani ’22

Hi! My name is Ruby Irani, I use she/her pronouns, I am a current sophomore, and running for the position of SGA archivist. The preservation of the documents of the history of Bryn Mawr is essential, but if students can’t regularly access this information, I feel there is a large disconnect between the value of the archives. The main problem I see with the archives in present form is the difficulty to find information. At present, one has to physically go to the special collections in Canaday and search through the archive documents themselves or go through the archivist website, which is somewhat disorganized. In both of these methods, you have to spend a fair amount of time to find the information you want! There are so many important things on the SGA website, archives blog, and in Special Collections, but right now the average student can’t access this without spending lots of time working for it. My goal as archivist is to digitize and organize documents and projects, mainly by making a new, efficient website or online database. By digitizing the documents and projects SGA, and specifically the archivist, has done, anyone can access the online files instantly (instead of searching or waiting for Canaday to open!).

I believe the archivist should importantly fill this administrative aspect of the job but should also be invested in discovering new information. The archivist should be able to work with and support any initiatives to discover more about the history of Bryn Mawr from the ideas of other groups on campus, committees, or the e-boards. I believe I would be able to work well with and organize any new projects that groups are interested in presenting. The archivist cannot tell history by only doing research themselves, and I think the aspect of teamwork is an essential quality to the position. I plan to do the work to make sure projects get started and completed.

Overall, although I do not have much experience with archiving and looking up historical documents, I am excited for this position! I feel I have the organization and dedication to learn more about researching and be able to effectively organize new and continuing projects. I look forward to seeing the accomplishments of SGA in the coming future and hope to be a part of them.

Jennifer Nguyen ’22

Hello everyone,

If you don’t know me already, my name is Jennifer Nguyen (she/her), and I am a first year from Chicago running for the position of SGA Archivist!

In the time I’ve been at Bryn Mawr, I’ve been lucky enough to serve and get to know the community through my positions on SGA as a Member at Large, a member of the Social Justice Task Force, as a barista making you lattes at Uncommon, but most importantly, through my relationships with you all. The community of Bryn Mawr has come to be one that I care for, and I see my role as Archivist as a continuation of the community building I have been part of so far. As I look back on my first year of college, a big part of campus conversation has been around the idea of institutional memory. Bryn Mawr, as an institution, is by no means perfect but in documenting our experiences and highlighting often disregarded voices on campus, we can define Bryn Mawr by our own terms instead of ones given to us.

My goals for my time as Archivist are to focus on capturing the everyday of students on campus, specifically, that of marginalized students and students of color. Often, it feels like the mainstream narrative of Bryn Mawr overlooks our experiences, yet it is thanks to the hard work of many AMO groups and Black and Brown individuals that the community is able to celebrate so much of life on campus. Being able to witness and attend different events on campus, I see a common thread in the community- our desire to create a more inclusive and welcoming campus. Collecting the narratives and work of everyone together through the position of Archivist, I hope to be a resource to connect and further unite our school.

Best,

Jennifer

SGA Treasurer

Yesenia Mendez ’21

My name is Yesenia Mendez, and I am a currently a second year studying economics and Spanish, and I am running for SGA Treasurer. Being a first-generation, low-income student, my parents and my community became my motivation to involve myself in economics and finance. With a financial and economic background, I can help and support people who lack this knowledge to understand how taxes, financial aid, insurance and corporations work.

Initially, I had a fear towards the complicated financial language in dealing with taxes. However, I took that fear and turned it into motivation and joined the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program where I became a certified IRS tax preparer. This is my second year volunteering to prepare taxes for Norristown, PA residents. During this experience, I developed strong communication skills in both English and Spanish and learned to adapt to a fast working environment. In intervals of 30 minutes, I finished a whole tax return and was able to immediately tell how much each household will get in refunds.

As the current Mujeres* Treasurer, I actively work with the President and other executive board members to create a budget and present it to the Student Government Association board for approval and ensure that club activities adhere to the budget. I am also responsible for collecting receipts for reimbursements and communicating with the Student Finance Committee to make sure that members who have made payments with their own money get a full reimbursement. Having to previously work with the SFC is very important because the SGA

Treasurer heads the Student Finance Committee (SFC) and appointed committee that manages club and other student funding.

The duties of the SGA Treasurer aligns with pragmatic personality due to its fast-paced and fast-learning environment. Personally, I enjoy doing meticulous work and produce tangible products in calculated time periods, which is important when dealing with reimbursements. If elected to be SGA Treasurer, I will be as transparent as possible when communicating with club presidents and treasurers. I will also guide clubs towards ways in which they can work with other departments in case they need more funding. My only goal is to help every single club obtain the resources they need for events and other activities because student-run clubs are a vital part of student life at Bryn Mawr.

Sarah Gu ’20

Hi, my name is Sarah Gu, Class of 2020, and I am running to be SGA Treasurer. For the past two years, I have thoroughly enjoy being a part of SGA as a treasurer for various of clubs and as a current Student Finance Committee member (SFC) in the weekly meetings.

As SGA Treasurer, I understand how it is very important to ensure all SGA Funds are administered properly to the clubs and organizations, and partially to Bi-Co clubs and organizations. In addition, I also recognize this role has other aspects to it such as Budget Workshops held at the beginning of each new semester, Budget Interviews, and heading the SFC during their weekly reimbursement meetings. As a first year, I was treasurer of one club, which sparked my interested in becoming treasurer for four clubs as a second year as well as a current SFC member. With the background knowledge and experience, I believe that I am more than prepared to take on this role.

For the future of SGA Treasurer, I have talked to current and previous SGA Treasurers about improving the effectiveness of this position such as ideas of setting up more resources for the incoming and current treasurers, getting rid of Budget Interviews, having more transparency and consistent communication with SGA and the clubs and organizations, etc. I will not only look to the previous heads, but also seek out any recommendations from the SGA Board as well as the treasurers from the other clubs and organizations. Overall, I acknowledge the amount of commitment and responsibility for this role and will work hard to ensure a smooth and effective transition as the SGA Treasurer of 2019-2020

 

Chair of Social Justice and Equity

Natasha Porter ’20

Aaliyah Joseph ’22

My name is Aaliyah. I am running for Chair of Social Justice and Equity.

I come from two full black parents and a lifeline of other black people who were native to the Southern region of Louisiana and Texas. But I also come from Portland, Oregon the whitest city per capita in the United States of America. Although Portland is literally as white as a city can get I have, ironically, been able to make Portland more than the city I was born and raised it also is the city that I started my passion and dedication for social justice.

Through leading conversations with people from rural areas, low income communities, and across ideologies I feel as if I am well equipped to be a social advocate on campus. I have been privileged enough to be surrounded by people who do not look like me but, are fighting to give me the opportunity and at a chance. This space has allowed me to understand and witness first hand the importance of being an ally and advocate for people.

Being Chair of Social Justice and Equity at Bryn Mawr would be the start and institutionalization of a norm and culture that prompts understanding, compassion, and allyship. I want to stand in my position and encourage Bryn Mawr to engage in difficult conversations, encourage one another to grow, and lastly re-establish Bryn Mawr’s commitment to social justice and equity with the intent of bettering our shared community.

Thank you,

Aaliyah

 

Head of Honor Board

Taylor McClain ’20