SGA election season to take place April 15-17, on-campus scooters update

Liberty University’s Student Government Association (SGA) had the greatest voter turnout in Liberty history during the student body president and vice president elections for the 2018-19 school year, with more than 6,000 students casting votes, according to SGA. 

The candidates running during this years’ campaign season anticipate nothing less than another exciting election week, which will take place April 15-17. 

Current Student Body President Jake Page and Vice President Derek Rockey won the hard-fought April 2018 election. Over the past year, the two have worked to implement a number of policies they promised voters during their campaign, which centered around establishing a school culture of unity and school spirit. 

As Page and Rockey review their past year in office, both are thankful for the opportunity to serve students inside and outside of SGA. 

“The entire experience has just been a real blessing, honestly, to serve the student body and to even serve those who did not even vote for us or maybe didn’t even vote at all,” Page said. “But to … represent the students and … to advocate on behalf of them has … really been an honor.” 

During Page and Rockey’s time in office, the pair has worked to fulfill their campaign promises through the implementation of new processes and new policies. To establish school spirit, the two began school-wide tailgates on the Academic Lawn during football season and promoted a student section at basketball games.

“The deep underlying thing is that we want to unify people, and part of the thing we wanted to do was unify through athletics and through our school and having spirit with that,” Rockey said. 

Page and Rockey also campaigned heavily with the idea of student involvement and worked to execute policy that positively impacted the student body. Under Page and Rockey’s leadership, SGA implemented a new system for funding clubs, created a club calendar for students to access club events, hosted two fundraising galas, created TED talk style events known as “Table Talks” and even began the process of bringing Bird Scooters to campus. 

“Just being able to serve and improve the school and to leave it better off than we found it is something that I’ve always loved,” Page said. “I have a deep love and passion for this school and being able to represent that same school is such a cool and unique opportunity that not many people get
to have.”

As a new election cycle begins, candidates will be blazing the campaign trail on Liberty’s campus once again, hoping to share appealing policies and make connections with students. Prior to announcing their campaigns, candidates were required to attend a candidate orientation March 20 in the SGA Office. Luke Broadway, election commissioner, met with candidates to review election rules to ensure a fair campaign season. 

Immediately following the orientation, candidates received permission to launch their campaigns. Rockey and Esther Lusenge — a pair of former rivals in two previous campaigns — will be running together this election cycle. Rockey will be running for Student Body President, and Lusenge will be running for Vice President.

Rockey and Lusenge have had a history of rivalry. Two years ago, the pair ran against each other in class elections. Last year, they ran on separate campaigns for student body president and vice president, with Rockey’s campaign taking the win last election season. The election cycles caused division between the pair, until both attended a trip to Israel over the summer with LU Send. Over the trip, their relationship had a chance to heal. 

“There was one night we had a really, really good conversation about what had gone down with the past campaign and the campaign before that,” Lusenge said. “And I would say that was like the start of the healing that needed to happen. Something that happened was that we realized it wasn’t going to benefit anyone if we were against each other.” 

Rockey has experienced an election before with his former running mate, Page, who will be graduating in the fall. Rockey understands the importance of picking a qualified running mate and feels confident in his decision of picking Lusenge as his campaign partner.

“In going and running with someone, there’s a lot of different factors (to consider),” Rockey said. “There’s character, there’s motivation, there’s intentions, there’s relationships, and all of these boxes Esther checked off — not even just checked off but exceeded expectations so much.” 

Rockey and Lusenge share a common vision for Liberty: unity and reconciliation. These two words are central themes in the candidates’ campaign. They believe that using their influence together will be of great benefit to the university and the student body. 

“We saw that us serving alongside each other because of the passion that we both have for Liberty and what we wanted to see for the student body was so much better and bigger than if we were doing it on our own,” Lusenge said. 

Rockey and Lusenge shared that the pair has built relationships with administrators, and they hope to leverage relationships for the benefit of students and to implement effective policy. The pair plans to work heavily to the needs of students and serve the student body based on those
expressed needs. 

“We ultimately love this school, but we know there are things that can be worked on, and so we want to unify this campus in the best way possible,”
Rockey said. 

Another pair planning to run during the election also arrived at the candidate orientation: juniors Brianna Caporaletti and Lauren Gill. However, Caporaletti dropped out of the race the day after the candidate orientation due to personal reasons, leaving Rockey and Lusenge’s campaign currently uncontested.

The Champion will continue coverage of the upcoming election.

Bird Scooter Update

 In October, Page and Rockey announced on the SGA Instagram page that Bird scooters would be coming to Liberty’s campus. However, since then, little update has been given to the student body. According to Page, the plan was to originally introduce the scooters to campus following Spring Break. Due to more time needed to complete contracting through the legal department and work out details with the transit department, the debut date for the scooters will be pushed back. 

According to Page, the idea to bring Birds to Liberty seemed like a solution to parking problems on campus and overcrowding of parking garages affecting commuter students. Page and Rockey’s team began brainstorming ways to help students get to their destinations faster when they park far away. According to Page, there was an original thought to create a bike sharing program, but then someone suggested the idea of transportation through scooters. 

“Scooters are the future, and we really thought a lot of students would be excited about that,” Page said. 

The Bird’s will function similar to the way they work in cities. Students will pay through the Bird app to start the scooter, but eventually, Page believes that students will be able to pay for Birds with Flames Cash. 

While there is not yet a specific date when scooters will be available for use on-campus, students can keep an eye out for updates on the SGA Instagram page. Page estimates that the administration will introduce the scooters either at the end of the Spring 2019 semester or at the beginning of the Fall 2019 semester.