After the final results were tallied, the three presidential positions – student body president, student senate president and senior class president – are represented by brothers in the Sigma Chi fraternity, coining the name “The Sigma Chi Triad.”
Will Quick, senior in biomedical engineering elected to the student body president position, said having brothers in top positions will ensure communication.
“It’s definitely nice to have a past working relationship and to know each other well,” he said.
“It bodes well for our ability to work together in the coming year and it’s definitely a good thing for Greek life in general and for our fraternity to see that type of leadership from some brothers in Sigma Chi.”
Quick said he wants to reach out to other parts of campus, such as the black community and other multicultural groups on campus, but still wants to get more Greeks involved. He said, however, that he will not recruit only brothers in appointing positions within Student Government.
“I definitely plan to be unbiased in my recruiting of people to work in Student Government,” he said. “They have to go through the same exact process as anybody else, but obviously you have to pull from a group of people who are willing to work with you.”
Quick said that, as of now, he’s not planning on appointing a lot of his brothers to positions.
“In fact,” he said, “I doubt many of them will be that interested.”
Zach Adams, junior in industrial engineering and student senate president elect, said representing Greek life will strengthen Student Government.
“It’s kind of funny because I can’t name a specific time when the fraternity and Student Government have ever overlapped,” Adams said.
“Student Government supported Greek life in the past but not a specific fraternity or sorority, so I think the biggest thing is the strong relationship inside of Student Government.”
Adams said Sigma Chi is a large part of his social life, and he and Quick were members of Student Government before they were members of Sigma Chi. He said, however, that his role in Student Government relates less to his fraternity than to his academics.
“Issues relating to Student Government are more related to my colleges of engineering and management than to Sigma Chi, as well as clubs and other organizations I’m involved with, such as IFC,” Adams said.
“If Greek life has any issues that we are aware of we will deal with them just as we would deal with any student issues brought to our attention — proactively.”
Adams said that Adam Whitehouse, junior in psychology and senior class president, may have wanted to get involved in Student Government because of his and Quick’s influences.
“As far as Adam [Whitehouse], me and Will Quick were in Student Government before Sigma Chi and Adam was my pledge brother,” Adams said. “I think he wanted to get more involved when he saw Will [Quick] working on issues.”
Whitehouse agreed, saying he can see the passion his brothers have for Student Government and he’s motivated to help the students.
“I just want to be able to go out and represent the students and help the students get what they want and deserve,” Whitehouse said.
The first thing on Whitehouse’s agenda is appointing the senior class counsel. He said that currently he’s not planning on appointing any brothers to the counsel.
“I’ll accept applications from everyone, but at this point I have a few people in mind,” he said, citing students on the junior class counsel and others, such as last year’s Student Senate President Forrest Hinton.
He also said he wants to reach out to the entire senior class and hopefully ensure every student group and major organization is represented.
Whitehouse said he’s excited about working with his brothers — not because they’re in the same fraternity but because of the communication they already have established.
“It doesn’t matter so much that they’re in my fraternity, what matters most is that I can communicate well with them and get things done,” he said.
“It can be any other two people, if I got along with them well I would be excited also because it’s easier to get things accomplished when you have good communication.”
Whitehouse said having representatives from Sigma Chi in the presidential positions will help his brothers stay in the loop and know what’s going on with the senior class.
All three brothers are looking forward to making a difference through their positions as presidents.
“I’m excited about a productive year in Student Senate,” Adams said. “With the senators that were elected I know we can focus our time, effort and resources on what matters to students.”
Whitehouse agreed.
“We can have an awesome year and repeat all the past traditions we started this year and I’d just like to carry out my whole platform which is hopefully what got me elected,” he said.
Quick said the students have gained a fair and honest student body president and they have a lot to look forward to because he plans to help Student Government serve the students and be responsible and open to student opinions.
“Thank you so very much to everyone who supported me,” Quick said. “I hope that the students are just as supportive and forthcoming in letting me know that there are issues of concern to the student body.”