The election season for the next Student Government Association (SGA) student body president and vice president is officially among us, and Kyle Glover and Jake Linker are teaming up as candidates. 

Polls are open March 15 at 9 a.m. through the 17 at 4 p.m. and will take place on WaveLink. 

Glover, the current SGA treasurer, is running for student body president. His running mate, Linker, current student services committee chair, is running for vice president. 

“I had a thought that if I could help one student that my job was complete and I think the reason why I am wanting to run for this position is that thought still prevails today,” said Glover. “There is much-unfinished business on our campus and I feel like it is our job as student leaders to advocate for initiatives and problems that our campus faces.”

Linker had similar sentiments, adding that he wants students to have the same opportunities that he has had getting involved and in finding his voice and place on campus. Linker also touched on why he and Glover are running together and what makes them a strong pair. 

“[We] both liked each other’s work ethic and had a similar level of passion for serving the student body, improving the student experience, and UNCW as a whole,” said Linker. We [also] do not have similar backgrounds in our experiences at UNCW. We have differing backgrounds that help us cover a larger majority of students, which I think is extremely important in this role. It’s important to have two different people that have differing opinions and perspectives so that you can have a more well-rounded view on what you need to do to kind of improve and assist the student body.”

Both Glover and Linker believe their backgrounds serving in SGA and various other campus roles make them qualified to lead the student body. 

Glover has also served as a senator, student services committee chair and on various chancellor committees relating to substance abuse and freedom of expression.

“I have a really good relationship with the upper administration within UNCW,” said Glover. “Like Jake mentioned, we have completely different backgrounds, but at the same time, similar backgrounds within SGA, and I think combining those two just makes us the most qualified candidates for forwarding the initiatives for SGA.”

Linker also serves as the president of Alpha Sigma Phi, on the campus conduct board, and helped launch the Swipes for Seahawks program. Additionally, Linker has coordinated several large-scale philanthropic events which raised over $10,000 for local schools and COVID-19 relief.

“I have a lot of broad experience in programming and communicating with high-level school administration, student organizations and student leaders, advocating for students and working with community partners to develop and implement a program or a new initiative,” said Linker.

Additionally, they believe they both share a strong passion for UNCW and serving and advocating for the student body through their various experiences. 

“I feel like [that] is the most vital part of this role,” said Linker. “[Our] enthusiasm, for working with each other, is reflected in our dedication to the student body.”

The most pressing issues they believe need to be addressed at UNCW include diversity and inclusion, sustainability and divestment and advancement which all tie into the four pillars they are running on which include: advancement, sustainability, engagement and harmony. 

Advancement 

They plan to address growing student concerns related to academic success following the uncertainty of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. 

One specific goal includes lowering the costs of textbooks. They plan to address this by educating faculty on the rising costs of textbooks and establishing a sustainable book exchange program where students could exchange books at no cost.

“We can come up with a quick educational thing and you can give that to all faculty,” said Linker. “If you give it to department directors and have them educate their faculty and explain, yeah, $100 might not seem like a lot for a book, but when you have six classes and you’re paying $600, that’s a month of rent and that’s not okay.”

They also want to improve the efficiency of academic advising. This would be done by meeting with administrators and the advising staff to reform the process so that students better understand the process and receive more guidance. Linker said that might mean advocating for more advising staff if necessary. 

Glover and Linker would also like to work with professors, so they can better utilize Canvas. This became especially relevant amid COVID-19 where online education became the norm and students complained about class organization problems and the cost of other online platforms professors will opt for instead.

“We would like to institute a Canvas training for faculty, in order to better improve and increase the usage of Canvas,” said Linker. “I’ve heard a lot of complaints and I’ve experienced it myself where professors have this free platform, it’s super easy to use, but they don’t know how to organize it well or aren’t fully utilizing it. By explaining to them how they can best utilize it, we can decrease the cost of course materials for students. So they don’t have to pay for these online learning platforms that essentially do the same exact thing.”

Sustainability

“There was a vote that was supposed to happen between the board of trustees on whether or not UNCW will continue to invest in fossil fuels last April. But due to COVID, it was deemed non-essential, and has been completely put off and kind of forgotten about since,” said Linker. “Obviously, there’s a lot of there’s been a lot to tap into the past year, with COVID, but we can’t become complacent and stalled on our different issues, we still need to push all of our issues or all our initiatives forward.”

As student body president, Glover would become a voting member of the board of trustees.

“You have to continue working for these initiatives in order to make strides to divest UNCW and make strides to become more ecologically friendly,” said Glover, “And if elected, I would have a very strong voice in that process. I would firsthand be like we need to talk about this now. Like yes, we have COVID going on right now, but this is also an important issue to address.”

They also plan on putting together a unified coalition made up of sustainability groups on campus. 

“We’ve identified there’s a lack of conversation and inefficiency whenever it comes to these different sustainable groups on campus, due to the lack of collaboration and communication,” said Glover. “Jake and I recognize that and if elected we would like to institute a campus sustainability council that would allow for that collaboration.”

They would also create a sustainability certification program at UNCW. This program would allow students to receive a certificate and graduation cord to showcase their commitment as sustainable community members. 

Engagement

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Glover and Linker want to encourage student engagement on campus, so students, especially underclassmen, can get the full Seahawk experience that was taken away due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

They’ve begun detailing plans, which SGA would institute, to allow students to be more engaged on campus. 

“One of those being [a freedom of expression wall],” said Glover. “You have probably heard talks about a freedom of expression wall that I’ve been very passionate about over the past few months, and I think that is first and foremost a very great idea to increase that engagement because it builds a connection between our campus and students because it allows them to express themselves.”

Pre-COVID-19 pandemic, Glover was working on a mental health day that got canceled, and he would like to see that back at the forefront of planning. They’d also like to advocate for more resources for the counseling center due to student complaints of understaffing. 

“There’s so much going on, I feel like mental health is one of the things that is easily overlooked,” said Glover. “Jake and I want to bring that to the forefront, and allow students to learn about why mental health is important. What are some activities you can get involved in and some hobbies you can start doing post-pandemic, to alleviate some of that stress that all these students have just been through.”

They also want to expand and find sustainable funding for programs like Swipes for Seahawks and the free feminine hygiene products that were started in the Talone/Balent administration. 

Harmony

Their fourth pillar is all about diversity and representation within the SGA. Both are aware that they, and their opponents, are all white males, and they want to make efforts to accurately represent the student body within the SGA.

They plan to address this right away and believe they cannot do the work of SGA until their senate and organization accurately reflect the student body.

Specifically, they want to encourage more women and people of color to apply for the SGA, especially the executive board. Glover and Linker said their job is to listen and help give voices to the diverse populations on campus to better understand their experiences. 

“It’s impossible for one student to understand how all students feel on their own without hearing those students’ opinions and concerns and taking them into consideration,” said Linker. “When finding out what do we need to do, what needs to happen, what are the problems on campus, it is important that we have those individuals working with us and in our organization so that we can make the changes that need to be made.”

Both believe they can start this process by creating better relationships with diverse students and organizations and departments on campus.

Additionally, they want to create a diversity training certification program similar to their planned sustainability certification and have regular town hall style meetings with administration and students to get and give feedback on issues relating to diversity, equity and inclusion.

To learn more about their campaign and give your feedback, you can visit their Instagram @gloverlinker2021.