Furman last week held elections for the Student Government Association (SGA) new Executive Council for the Fall of 2019, and Jesse Tompkins is this coming year’s new president. The members of SGA are “students serving students,” said Tompkins.Tompkins further describes SGA as a governing body that creates clubs and provides resources and funding to clubs and other organizations on campus. There are class positions within SGA and they hold class forums each semester where students can voice concerns, though he says those have become less frequent.

Tompkins previously served as sophomore class president and is excited to take the next step as President on Executive Council. He says, “each week we have speakers from different areas of campus that inform us about what’s going on, so Chief Milby might come or someone from Housing to tell us about housing issues and then our job as student representatives is to relay that back to our classes. When those speakers come that’s also an opportunity for us as council members to voice concerns.” Each class has a secretary that sends out information each week to update the student body about these updates.

Tompkins says his goals are “recreating those class forums and facilitating student’s concerns better” as well as “better communication with administration.” He hopes that SGA will become an organization that people will take more seriously. As an overarching goal, he and the other members of the newly elected council would like to strive for more social justice initiatives, something they are all passionate about and create more partnerships between SGA and other organizations. Tompkins also noted that students have been voicing complaints about transportation issues and he hopes SGA can work alongside groups like RLC to make changes.

SGA holds meetings Mondays at 6 p.m. in the Thomas Room in Trone Student Center. Students are welcome to attend a meeting, voice their concerns and follow SGA on social media for updates and events.