Every spring, the Student Association (SA) holds its elections for officer positions. The elections this spring will be held March 24 and 25 on Harvey.
Running in this election are six students for four offices. Kareem Ihmedian is running unopposed for president, Lanie McKinney and Sean O’Brien are running for vice president, Kaitlin Argo is running unopposed for treasurer and Savannah Sinclair and Justin Yang are running for secretary.
There will be a debate Monday March 22 at 6 p.m., during which further information about each candidate will be shared. What follows is a brief summary of each of the candidates.
President
Kareem Ihmeidan’s past experience in SA includes his position this year as Chief of Staff-Senate. This role included advancing initiatives that improved communication between SA and student organizations including the Presidents Council and organizing many town halls. He is running on a platform to improve the quality of student life and campus culture as well as to work with the City of Tulsa to improve the community around TU. By voting for him, Ihmeidan believes that a new age of student life at the University of Tulsa can be ushered in through initiatives that advocate and encourage student ingenuity. If you have further questions, you can reach out to him by emailing him at abi8066@utulsa.edu or sending a DM to @Kihmeidan on Instagram.
Vice President
Lanie McKinney’s past experience in SA includes serving on the Government Operations Committee as an elected senator freshman year, serving as the SA Secretary, which involved taking notes through the weekly meetings and serving on the Government Operations Committee as an elected senator once again during her junior year. McKinney is running on a platform to reengineer the funding process to be clearer and more accessible to student organizations, pass legislation that reflects student priorities such as sustainability and inclusion and foster a culture in the senate that is welcoming and recruits diverse student leaders to more accurately represent the student body. By voting for her, McKinney believes that students will be choosing a person committed to elevating the many diverse voices at TU to the administrative level. If you have further questions, you can reach out to her by emailing her at lgm5572@utulsa.edu or sending a DM to @lanieforvp on Instagram.
Sean O’Brien’spast experience in SA includes serving on the Government Operations Committee as a senator during his freshman year and serving as the secretary of SA, which involved taking notes during the weekly Cabinet, Senate and Exec meetings during his sophomore year. His platform is focused on making it easier for students and organization leaders to use SA resources and assess funding. In making the student leadership easier, he wishes to implement a program to better train organization presidents and treasurers in accessing organization funding. By voting for him, students will elect a person whose platform will do a lot for the good of the TU community. If you have further questions, you can reach out to her by emailing him at spo3669@utulsa.edu or sending a DM to @seanforvp on Instagram.
Treasurer
Kaitlyn Argo’s past experience in SA includes roles as Deputy Chair of the Monetary Allocations Committee, during which she helped pass bills and fund organizations. Her platform is centered around making the funding process for student organizations smoother and easier for everyone involved, as well as making everything more transparent to the student body. As a result of this, students will be able to clearly see what is going on in SA and TU as a whole. Argo believes that her past experience in SA and goals for the future will make for great results as treasurer. If you have further questions, you can reach out to her by sending a DM to @okgal21 on Instagram.
Secretary
For the past year, Justin Yang has been the SA Associate Director in the Social and Community Engagement Department of the Cabinet branch and has worked on several events, including movie night for Homecoming week and a TU student pumpkin decorating kit handout last fall. His platform is to bring change and reform to the Secretary position in SA by increasing student organization interaction with SA Executive and to create an analytics system to understand student involvement and share the information on how to increase participation with orgs and the rest of SA. By voting for him, Yang believes that you will be voting for someone who has the motivation and love for TU to make a difference. If you have further questions, you can reach out to him by emailing her at jey1421@utulsa.edu or by sending a DM to @j_yangg_ on Instagram.
For the past three years, Savannah Sinclair has been a senator. During this time, she has been on the Governing Operations Committee and has passed several bills. If you have further questions, you can reach out to her by emailing her at sds6291@utulsa.edu or by sending a DM to @savforsecretary on Instagram.
After deciding which candidates you believe would make the best impacts on TU, whether it be in student life, academics or student organizations, be sure to log into Harvey on March 23 and 24 to vote for each office.
