The Ithaca College Student Governance Council held its platform presentations Sept. 12 for candidates running in the Fall 2024 election.

Campaigning begins at 9 a.m. Sept. 16 and lasts until 4:59 p.m. Sept. 20. Voting opens on IC Engage at 9 a.m. Sept. 19 and will be open until 4:59 p.m. Sept. 20. All students will be emailed the link to vote.

There are ten open senate positions that candidates are running for, including both Class of 2028 senators, two senators-at-large, a senator for the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance, two Class of 2026 senators, two Class of 2027 senators, the first generation senator, the transfer senator and the varsity athlete senator. There are eight open senate positions that do not have candidates running for them, including both Class of 2025 senators, one Class of 2026 senator, one Class of 2027 senator, one senator-at-large, one Students of Color Coalition senator, one graduate senator and one off-campus senator.

SGC Senate Chair Nikki Sutera said via email that SGC typically has open positions, but after COVID, the number of seats filled saw a sharp decline. Positions did not start to fill back up to a comparable level until Fall 2022 and have increased steadily every year. She said open seats have limited SGC because there are less people who can create initiatives for the school.

“There are important sections of the student body that are not being represented,” Sutera said via email. “Since SGC is the sole governing body for students at Ithaca College, it is imperative that everyone can feel represented and heard.”

Junior Noeline Luyindula presented her platform as the candidate for first generation senator. She said she has experience in leadership through her role as an e-board member for Sister 2 Sister and her position on the board of finance and community for the African Student Association.

“I just want to be a voice and amplify [the] voice of every single first gen student in IC,” Luyindula said. “It’s very important that we have a voice and we are being represented.”

Junior Dante Conde is running for a Class of 2026 senator position. He cites his previous experience working in SGC’s appropriations and campus affairs committees. He said he wants to examine the college’s budget to see if there are resources to spend on improving infrastructure at the college. One way he said he would do this is by making sure residence hall heating meets the College’s policy of the temperature being set between 74 and 76 degrees during a cooling season.

“We want to see which rooms first are not meeting those standards, and then making sure that it’s within our budget to be able to fix said rooms,” Conde said. “New students shouldn’t be coming onto campus and wondering, ‘Why is my room so hot,’ or ‘Why is this room freezing cold?’”

Junior Login Abudalla is running for the position of transfer senator. She said she was formerly the Wells College Class of 2026 president before transferring to Ithaca College. She said that if elected, she would use her experience with organization and communication with the student body as a senator.

“Not everyone’s able to have the non-level of anxiety to speak to the higher authorities or to speak out in a public forum on [the] regular, and so we would do that on their behalf,” Abudalla said.

First-year student Giulia Gennari is campaigning to be the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance senator. She said she has experience communicating with faculty to express students’ concerns through organizing a Black affinity group and being a student government representative in high school.

“I understand the stress of college, and I have cried over chem before,” Gennari said. “I think it would just be nice to have someone in this position who knows the stresses that all the other students are going through.”

Sophomore Juno Brooks is running for one of two Class of 2027 senator positions. She said she has experience as the president of the student advocacy board in high school where she started a Black Student Union, and she is the senator of the college’s Black Student Union.

“I know it was really tough for me my first year, so I’d like us to have more community engagement,” Brooks said. “I’d like to do this by working with clubs and administration to have more events and get a better, more frequent bussing schedule so students can get off campus as well.”

First-year students Amelia Grimshaw and Manan Maini are both campaigning to fill the two Class of 2028 senator positions. Grimshaw said she has experience from emceeing her high school graduation and from working as treasurer for her high school’s student government. She said she plans to communicate information that is not common knowledge to the student body — for example, delivering oversized packages from the mail center.

“I want to make sure that information like that, that’s kind of … tucked away is brought out to the public, so everybody can be like, ‘Oh my gosh, they can bring my package to me,’” Grimshaw said.

Maini said he has strong communication skills from playing sports in high school. He said he wants to be a voice for the Class of 2028 and help open a line of communication between first-year students and upper-year students.

“I would eagerly be waiting to work with the SGC community to know about the inside out and let the students, or my main student know about these resources,” Maini said.

First-year students Claude Hayes and Abe Marron are both running for senator-at-large positions. Hayes said he came from a high school without a strong sense of community, which inspired him to want to help foster community at the college. Hayes plans to compile information on the college’s resources in one place in order to make it more easily accessible for the student body.

“Things like all of the acronyms used for organizations, figuring out the mail center and even the specifics of the dining room halls were kind of tricky for me to figure out,” Hayes said. “I’d want to compile a single place where all this information is available outright to first-years.”

Marron said he has leadership experience from his time as an Eagle Scout, when he developed leadership and organizational skills. He said he plans to use these skills to build community and keep the student body up to date.

“Since I don’t know a lot about specifics on IC yet, my primary plan is currently to foster as much communication as possible, because the best thing anyone can do for themselves — for everybody — is just to make sure everyone’s as informed as possible,” Marron said.

Sophomore Anabel Pimenta Velloso is running to be the varsity athlete senator. She said she wants to build community between athletes and the rest of the student body, as well as support the issues that the college’s student-athletes face.

“I think it’s not really understood, because we’re a Division III school, the level that a lot of us are competing at,” Velloso said. “A lot … is expected of us —  time-wise, physically — and we have to be so many places, and oftentimes at once.”

SGC president Rishabh Sen closed out the presentations by thanking the candidates.