By Claire Carpenter
Allison Waters, ‘25, a double major in economics and business, was recently elected vice president of Trinity’s Student Government Association (SGA) for the 2024-2025 school year. She is currently an SGA senator and member of the finance committee.
The vice president-elect said that her first step after transitioning into her new position will be to create a strong cabinet. The cabinet positions include the chief of staff, the communications chair, the secretary, the treasurer, the legislative relations chair, the judicial chair, and the diversity, equity, and inclusion chair. “I think that by creating a really strong cabinet, we can foster an environment where everyone wants to work hard and is excited about being there in addition to just being really close overall,” said Waters.
Waters is also excited to take on the increased financial responsibility that comes with being a vice president. “Being in the finance committee is my favorite part of SGA because it allows me to directly benefit students and like being able to say, ‘Yeah we can give you like $700 for this event’ and then when 40 people benefit it is a really amazing thing. It’s super rewarding.”
In addition, Waters wants to focus on supporting and improving SGA. She sees the vice president “very much an internal rank leader in SGA whereas the president is more of an external face for the rest of the university.”
By taking on an internal leadership role, Waters will be able to enact the SGA-specific changes she has in mind. These changes include “sustained increased transparency within SGA,” which will allow the student body to have a clearer understanding of the internal workings of the SGA. Waters said that she wants to create a system “that is straightforward and clear when it comes to funding” for student organizations.
Waters is not the only person who takes issue with the current lack of transparency within SGA. Nelson Rose, a junior, also commented that “SGA should work to improve transparency and accountability regarding the distribution of the entire budgeted fund.” He said that he hopes since Waters ran with the campaign promise of transparency, she will be able to influence SGA to be more open about their financial decisions.
“Since I’ve been on SGA for two years, I really know how it works, what its strengths are, and what its weaknesses are,” Waters said. “I think that I can definitely target its weaknesses and therefore make it a better SGA and make our school experience for all my peers better overall.”
The current president of SGA, Danny Nguyen, advised Waters that “strong relationships lead to trust, they lead to unity but they also lead to more efficient problem-solving through building alliances with others.”
Waters understands the importance of establishing relationships with various campus stakeholders, including the administration, student organizations, and faculty advisors. In fact, having these relationships has already helped Waters implement change on campus.
Last year the Prassel dorm fire alarm went off six times in a month at 3 a.m. Since Waters had had meetings with Ernesto Gonzalez, associate director of Facilities Services, through SGA, she was able to email him “saying how concerned the students were about the alarms waking them up.” With Waters leading the charge, the issue was fixed within a month.
During her years as a senator, Waters met with several residential assistants at Trinity and came to realize that there is no way for the student workers to report issues that they have with their leadership. She has been working toward establishing an anonymous complaint system for residential assistants. “I’m working currently on an RA anonymous feedback form with ResLife in order to help RAs have a way to give feedback. This is to make sure that RLCs (Residential Life Coordinators) have accountability,” she said.
Waters will start her term on May 1. Nguyen, the outgoing SGA president, shared some of the hopes he has for the future VP. “I would like to see the new leadership pursue initiatives that increase student satisfaction on campus. I think the campus will be in good hands, and I trust that SGA will continue to do great things. I hope that she has fun!”
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