Aubrei Grisaffe is a junior majoring in political science and the current SGA vice president for belonging and wellness. She is running uncontested to be the next executive vice president.
Q: Why are you running for this position?
A: I am running to serve as your next SGA executive vice president because over the course of the last two years in SGA, I have found a passion for serving the students around me. The role of executive vice president is largely internally focused, and so throughout my experiences as vice president for belonging and wellness, I have seen and come to know very well the different systems that allow our SGA to be successful, and so as executive vice president, I hope to kind of capitalize on my understanding and make it better, not just for the students in SGA, but a brighter future for our entire university.
Q: What are the key parts of your platform?
A: Yes, so I am running on a platform dedicated towards setting our collective sites on a brighter future for The University of Alabama by advocating for student needs, launching future leaders for success, informing students of on-campus resources, growing an internal SGA marked by efficiency and support, and navigating our campus and community engagements. Each of those first words form the word “align.” And so essentially, through ALIGN, again, I hope to set our collective sights on a brighter future.
Q: What are two specific initiatives you want to accomplish in this position, and what time frames will you accomplish them in?
A: My first initiative that I’m really hoping to get off the ground is a restructuring of our committee system. Our committee system is a way that any student on campus can get involved in SGA. In my experience as a VP, I oversaw one of the committees. So currently, the way that our committee program is structured is that it’s directly under these VPs, and there’s no super clear guidelines for how the bodies are supposed to work. My goal is to develop a comprehensive committee curriculum so that every single student that participates in the committees has a meaningful experience with SGA, gains an understanding of the internal function of SGA, but also sees how the SGA is working to better the student community.
And then another initiative that I’m really hoping to get off of the ground is a Safe Walk program. Safe Walk is something that’s implemented at other universities across the United States, I think specifically of the University of Oklahoma has a highly successful Safe Walk program. As a female student, there have been multiple instances where I’ve been walking across campus late at night and I haven’t been able to find somebody that I felt comfortable calling at the time. And so through the Safe Walk program, I hope to develop a 24/7 call support line students can call whenever they’re in situations walking back home alone at night or during the day and feel as though they could be put in a dangerous situation.
As for the timelines for each of these, I think something that’s really unique about our SGA terms is that they do last an entire year. Even though campaigns start in February and we kind of get our feet running on the ground in April after being inaugurated, you truly do hold your previous role until about April, so I plan to take advantage of all that time, and while I hope that it’s able to be completed early on in my term, understanding that you have to be adaptable in the roles is crucial to overall success.
Q: Your position this year is uncontested. Knowing this, how will student voters be able to hold you to your campaign promises?
A: I do acknowledge that running unopposed is kind of a unique situation, maybe unconventional, but I’m extremely excited about the different platform points that I’m running on, and based on my experiences serving in Executive Council previously, I feel confident that students will have the channels to access me that will keep me accountable to my different campaign promises. I’m somebody that prioritizes outreach to student organizations, and I am in frequent conversations with different student leaders, and I plan to retain that as I go into my role as executive vice president.
I also think that one of the most unique elements of executive vice president is the scope at which it interacts with different people within SGA. I think for accountability purposes, it almost has two different groups of students holding them accountable, the students that are in SGA directly reaping the benefits of the work of executive vice president, but also the general student body, and I plan to emphasize and remain accountable to each of those.
Q: How do you plan to carry your experience from your spot on this year’s Executive Council into your new position?
A: I think my experiences on Executive Council this past year is really what spurred my interest in continuing. This year has been marked by an extreme productivity in a way that I never expected it to be whenever I first walked into the role. It’s been a really unique experience in that I walked into a position and it completely changed over the course of my time holding the position, and through that, I’ve had the ability to connect with thousands of students across campus, but also come to intimately know and understand the different processes by which SGA can find success, as well as understand kind of how administrators play a role into our work.
Through these experiences, I’m really excited to take the relationships that I have and channel them towards this new position, but also, as somebody who has served on the Executive Council before, one of the primary roles of the executive vice president is to work alongside the different VPs, and so I’m excited having that VP experience, being able to provide the support for them that I’ve received over this past year from the current executive vice president.
Q: How will you work to make the SGA more transparent in its operations and give students more of a voice in the process beyond the election?
A: I think that transparency is always something that can be improved upon. Obviously, there are tons of students involved in SGA, but the primary way that I want to increase transparency is by increasing access for students. One of my platform points is dedicated to launching future leaders for success, and under that platform point, there are multiple different initiatives aimed at ensuring that there are more student positions available for those that want to engage in SGA in a variety of capacities.
One of the ones that I’m most passionate about is the second-year outreach initiative that essentially creates a body of students that are specifically second-year students that have not had prior involvement in SGA and allow[s] them the opportunity to get placed into small groups to get to know one another but also influence the way that the different policies and programs that SGA is enacting better reflect the needs of the students.
Another way that I hope to do this is by establishing an SGA student organization liaison specifically, and how this role is set to function is that this will be a person dedicated to going out and talking to different student organizations that may or may not have strong relationships with SGA already, and seeing their needs and then making policy recommendations to our senators.
Q: How do you plan to ensure that all students, including those from underrepresented groups, feel represented on campus and in the SGA?
A: So as I mentioned previously, this past year has been a really, really unique year, with the passage of SB129 and the implementation of Alabama Act 2024-34, but above all else, in my role, and assuming that I’m able to take the role of executive vice president, one of the most critical functions of the SGA is ensuring that every single student feels heard and represented. I’ve had the opportunity to engage with so many different students across campus. Even in light of this legislation, we’ve been able to develop new initiatives that have allowed for even more student engagement with our programming, and I hope to continue taking that initiative and allowing it to grow over the next year.
Q: What’s one last thing you want voters to know about you?
A: I would like voters to know that daily I am dedicated to fulfilling the SGA motto of being a student that serves students. I want to hear from students, and I want to do what I can to make this university the best that it can possibly be for each student.
