Newly elected Student Goverment Association President Seth Leto says he “has the ideas and experience to
lead students” as he hopes to leave his mark on SGA.
After spending five semesters in the SGA senate, Leto decided to run for the presidency this year and has several
notable changes coming. One of the biggest changes comes with the cabinet size.
Unlike former president Erin Fernandez, who had a much larger cabinet, Leto intends to make his smaller in
order to allow for better communication. “It’s more close-knit and I believe we will be able to work more
efficiently because of it” he stated.
Another big change comes in the form of what he calls “communication transparency”
in which he plans on making sure the website is up to date with their agenda and schedules.
This will allow students to better keep up with SGA’s events and let them more contact with
SGA.
According to Leto the biggest chance comes in the form of revising the SGA bylaws. This
project will be headed by Leto, his Vice President Richard Davis Jr., and Chief Justice Ali Leblanc
in which they intend to simplify the bylaws and election code policies into one document in
order to make it clearer to students who plan on joining SGA.
When discussing the budget, he said that there would be a director of finance
overseeing the budget and working closely with other SGA members to make sure that the
budget doesn’t get out of hand like it did this year. The finance director Richard Davis Jr., who
is also the Vice President, will be working closely with Seth to set new standards for the grant
system. He says in this way SGA can “try to get the biggest bang for our buck while trying to
benefit the maximum number of students possible.”
In order to boost student involvement in SGA, he intends to have several events planned
to help give students a better understanding of what SGA is and how they can get more
involved. He says that SGA will try and work on having an open forum where any student can
come and meet senators so they can ask questions in order to get a better understanding of
what SGA is and what they do. SGA is also working on sending various members to SE101
classes to talk to freshmen who could potentially interested in joining. He added that when
they had their booth set up at Strawberry Jubilee, “We asked people to stop by to see if they
were interested in joining SGA. Many people who came by filled out interest forms so now we
are looking to get back to them as soon as we can.”
Other members of SGA seem to agree with Leto as new president including former Vice
President Gabrielle Reynolds who describes him as “a man who truly loves Southeastern and
the Student Government Association. Students will want to approach Seth to talk about their
problems and he will do everything in his power to help them.” She later followed up that
statement by saying “He is a fiercely passionate student, he is so committed to the excellence
of our campus going as far as to take up multiple positions in the senate.”
SGA’s Chief of Staff Neil Bourgeois believes Leto has what it takes to succeed saying “I
know he will do what it takes to make SGA a better organization. He has great plans to make
SGA a priority and make campus pride stronger.”
