Claudia Hogan is a junior majoring in public relations and political science from Gadsden, Alabama running for executive secretary. 

Q: How did you originally get involved with SGA?

A: I kind of started off with just committees and stuff like that, I helped with higher ed day committee when I was a freshman and then this past year, I was communications director for the senate.”

What made you want to run for this position?

Through that role for the senate, I kind of started thinking about maybe trying for a role with more responsibility and I thought that executive secretary really kind of lined up with some of the things that I did with communications director and I was also kind of interested in some skills I had with that job and how I could apply it to that office and so that’s what really kind of sparked my interest in the first place.

What makes you the best choice for the office?

I would say my extensive background in communications really gives me a leg up on everything that I would have responsibility-wise with this role. On campus, I currently work for the College of Communications and I’m a communications assistant, so I spend ten hours a week over there and I do a lot of admin stuff but also I compile newsletters, I have a lot to do with how the students get information from C&IS through the channel between admin and students. So I have experience with that and I also have other various experiences that have prepared me for this role. 

I worked at the Women and Gender Resource Center last year as their communications intern and I’ve worked in a couples other clubs and organizations and stuff like that that have really oriented me to this position and also I’m really passionate about student government. I really like working with other people and I’ve really felt like being in SGA even in just the other roles that I’ve had these past two years have really kind of sparked my interest and I just wanted to kind of get in a position where I got to give more and invest more of my time in it, so I really think I’m prepared, just from my past experiences. 

I’m very dedicated and driven so I think that I’m definitely the best candidate for this role just based off my previous experiences and just my personality type.

What do you hope to change?

So my platform is essentially, I’ve been kind of centering it around improvements mostly with information. I feel like a lot of students don’t always know how to get information about the SGA or if they do try to find it, it’s not always there. I know like a lot of people were complaining about like the election timeline and how it wasn’t really released in a timely manner and I just don’t want people to ever feel like that. I want them to think ‘I want to know what’s going on with the senate or the executive council’ and I want to make sure that that information is accessible and ready for them. So that’s something that broadly most of my points are about but also I know like in past years, we always say that we want to digitize our office hours and stuff like that and we’re still literally taking office hours by hand every week. I know there’s been talk about a SGA app and I was hoping that we could actually integrate that aspect into the app, mostly just for efficiency and also I feel like it’d be really nice for members to be able to look and see ‘Oh I’ve done this many hours this week, I’m good to go or I’m lacking.’ I think it would kind of create more accountability for both SGA members and myself if I were to get the office. Also just in this day and age, I feel like we should be digital in pretty much everything that we do. I guess also I would just like to work with the webmaster more just to make sure that like information is more accurate and accessible on the website and other channels of information.

What’s one last thing you want the voters to know about you?

I guess I would say that I would be 110 percent dedicated to this position. I’ve really strategically thought about what I want to involve myself in in my last year of undergrad. I would be totally dedicated to this role and making it the best it could be.

What’s the biggest problem you see on campus?

I think that the biggest problem is probably the disconnect between the SGA and student body. I know that not everyone gets as involved as some or may not even think they care as much as some when it comes to student government but I’d really like to see, just not even with my role but with others, more of a connection between the student body and the SGA where people feel like they know the people that are in SGA on a better basis and that they’re not just kind of figure heads, they’re real people and they’re people that you can go to to seek out help and I’d really like for that to start with something like just having information, like knowing what’s going on and have that spread throughout all the other positions as well. I think that’s something that’s probably been a problem for a long time now and I’d really like to see that kind of unify and have everyone kind of involved even if they think that they can’t be.