The Student Government Association made several changes to its rules and procedures for the upcoming 2013-2014 SGA officers elections to be held in March, including cutting the amount of time students have to campaign.
The SGA will outline these changes along with general campaign information during a session on Tuesday, Jan. 15 at 6:30 p.m.
The session will address the election’s timeline as well as campaigning guidelines and office requirements, including changes to the policies and rules in previous years. Most notably the SGA has decided to change the amount of time candidates will be able to campaign.
“The time frame for active campaigning will only be about 2 1/2 weeks instead of over four weeks,” said Kelli Knox-Hall, senior assistant director of operations of the Ferguson Center. “Based on the shortened campaign period, we have limited online campaigning to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Stand-alone websites (e.g. candidatename.com) will not be allowed this year.”
Seven executive offices and 50 senate seats will be elected. Any student in good academic standing is able to run for office. Undergraduate students wishing to run for either senate or and executive office must have at least a 2.3 GPA. Senate candidates must have completed at least 12 hours, while executive candidates must have completed at least 36 hours with 12 completed at The University of Alabama.
Madalyn Vaughan, SGA director of administration, said the information sessions are not required but are encouraged.
“Any student/potential candidate will hopefully take advantage of the information session,” she said.
Students interested in running will be given the guidelines and expectations associated with campaigning for office in the SGA, including a required orientation for candidates and their campaign team.
“Also, we have added an ethics training that will accompany the orientation,” Knox-Hall said. “This training and orientation will be required for all candidates and campaign managers. In addition, the training will be required for the top five campaign staff members for each executive campaign.”
The information sessions are being held in Anderson Room 302 of the Ferguson Center.
