The Black Student Alliance held Executive Board elections April 1 and selected its new officers.
Second-year College student Bryanna Miller was elected BSA president, and first-year College student Cameron Stokes was elected vice president.
Second-year College student Brianna Hamblin and second-year College student Haden Parrish were both elected to serve as directors of communication.
First-year College student Lauryn Major was elected Director of Finance, and second-year College student Chandra Asare was elected director of membership.
Second-year College student Wes Gobar was elected political action advisor, and first-year College student Bryanna Rather was elected secretary.
Second-year College student Kayla Vincent and second-year College student Isaiah Walker were both elected directors of programming.
Miller is the only returning executive board member. She was elected leadership development chair in spring 2015, and became vice president after the previous vice president stepped down in fall 2015.
Miller was a part of the TRUST team platform, which stands for transparency, representation, unity, sustainability and transformation.
All 10 elected members of the executive board ran under this platform.
Miller said TRUST came together after a meeting with several other aspiring executive board members who all shared a common goal. They decided to run together so the BSA would benefit from cohesive leadership, Miller said.
“I think the main thing is that we all have a collective vision for our community that is aligned, and something that I have noticed being on the executive board this year is that it has been difficult to come up with a collective vision,” Miller said. “I think in that way it will help us build relations in collaboration with other organizations and also will allow BSA [to] be more representative of our community.”
Miller said the new executive board is committed to incorporating the alliance’s membership into decision making and making sure programming reflects the African-American community.
Incoming co-Director of Programming Vincent said the meaning of unity in TRUST involved improving.
“[With] unity we want to improve the general outlook of the BSA to the larger University as well as within our own community,” Vincent said. “We really wanted to expand our co-sponsorship that we do with other organizations so that we can increase our own exposure as well as highlight other CIOs that are here on Grounds so that our members can also benefit from a larger cultural exchange.”
Miller also said working with other organizations is important for the BSA in the upcoming year.
“The first thing I want to accomplish is to establish unity between the African-American communities within the University by encouraging co-sponsorship with other organizations and also making sure that our programming is more targeted, so that other organizations –—there are over 30 black organizations on Grounds — have space to grow,” Miller said.
In her role overseeing the BSA’s Leadership Development Committee, Vincent said she hopes to empower African-American student leaders with leadership development workshops.
“There are a lot of skills that go into being a leader here at the University, whether it is basic event planning or knowing who to network with or how to network, and also just networking with each other so that we can support each other,” Vincent said.
Miller said a major goal is to increase connectivity between the BSA, administrators and other student organizations.
“More generally I just want to see better social relations between different communities within our community and better relationships with individuals on the administration but also individuals in Student Council, Honor and other organizations,” Miller said.
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