Although increasing diversity in Student Government was a focus for both tickets this election season, change may be slow to come to what seems to be an established culture of SG.
SG President John Woodard said SG has undergone significant changes in the past couple of years as more people who are not traditionally part of SG become involved in the organization. He said SG is less dominated by the Greek community than in the past, estimating between 50 and 60 percent of SG members are Greek.
That is still much higher, however, than the 20 percent of LSU students who are Greek.
Woodard also said many SG members this year are new to the organization.
“In years past, there had been a lineage of SG kids … running year after year, but it’s changed in the past couple of years,” Woodard said. “The makeup of SG this year is very different than many years past.”
Bringing fresh blood into SG is important, Woodard said, and some progress has been made this year, partially because of the nature of his Unite LSU ticket. Woodard pointed out that the Unite LSU ticket was the first of its kind because he and Vice President Taylor Parks were not SG insiders and the ticket “wasn’t a continuation of any past groups.”
Prior to their election, Woodard had been involved in SG for one year and Parks never had.
This year, however, both of the presidential candidates and both of the vice presidential candidates either ran on the Unite LSU ticket or helped with the campaign last year.
Further, both tickets — The Next Step and Experience LSU — feature a male presidential candidate and female vice presidential candidate. This is a trend that is at least eight years strong, according to data gathered from The Daily Reveille archives.
SG has not had a female president since Cassie Alsfeld was elected in 2007. Twenty-eight tickets have run since 2007; of those, 21 have followed the male president-female vice president format.
Experience LSU vice presidential candidate Ashleigh Pichon said she thought about running for president, but decided her experience was better suited to the vice president’s duties, which include programming and working with college councils. Pichon was University Center for Freshman Year council president last year and briefly served as SG executive director this year.
Clay Tufts, The Next Step presidential candidate, said while it would be “healthy to break the mold” of having a male president and female vice president, the duties of each office factored into their decision of who would run for what.
Rebecca DeManuelle, communication disorders freshman, said although there are no female SG presidential candidates this year, she is not worried because she feels the candidates value teamwork and are not concerned with who does what in each office.
“These [candidates] are like a team,” DeManuelle said. “It’s not a one person thing. Every time they’re portrayed, they’re portrayed together and as a team.”
Matthew Kiefer, kinesiology junior, said the gender of the SG president doesn’t matter — rather, vote choice should depend on the person and their abilities.
Still, candidates say they recognize SG represents all students at the University and want to improve diversity in the organization. Both tickets believe they can make SG more representative of the University’s diverse student body by involving more outside organizations.
Experience LSU presidential candidate Christian Coleman and Pichon want to create a diversity director position that would oversee its own subcommittee. This person would focus on connecting with all the student organizations on campus and find ways to get them involved.
“There are so many new organizations on campus that SG hasn’t connected with,” Coleman said. “There are other good leaders on this campus, and we have to find them.”
Coleman said the Greek community, to which he and Pichon belong, is powerful in SG because it is a large group of people who want to involve their friends, who are often Greek as well. There are other large communities on campus, however, such as the Residence Hall Association that Coleman said his administration will strive to work with more closely.
Tufts and his running mate, Taylor Lambert, are also members of Greek organizations. Tufts said he also believes the biggest issue concerning diversity is outreach to student organizations. If elected, his administration would “reach out to every type of club directly” by going to their meetings to show what SG can offer them.
“We would reach out toward them instead of relying on them to come to us with any issues they may face,” Tufts said.
Because organizations tend to concern specific issues on campus, SG can benefit by working with them when addressing those issues, Tufts said.

“There are so many new organizations on campus that SG hasn’t connected with. There are other good leaders on this campus and we have to find them.”

Gallery • 3 Photos

Lauren Duhon

Sophomore Kate Kelly hands a flyer promoting The Next Step ticket to a student Monday, March 24, 2014 on Student Government election day.