The University celebrated inauguration day for LSU Student Government on April 17 with the induction of new the Student Government president and vice president, Jason Badeaux and Leah Sanders, respectively.
Following the induction, Badeaux and Sanders continued the work on initiatives they campaigned on throughout March.
“We’ve just finished appointing all of our executive positions,” Badeaux said. “Our main focus right now … is finishing up the semester and the things we have going on this semester.”
The last SG event planned for this semester is the extended study hours of the University’s Student Union. Beginning April 26 and lasting until May 3, the Student Union will be open from 11 p.m. until 2 a.m., the product of an initiative from SG which was introduced last semester.
In addition, the newly elected SG president and vice president have been working on furthering the initiatives discussed during their campaign.
“Where we are now is working on some of the initiatives the we ran on and some of the other stuff in Student Government,” Badeaux said. “We are trying to optimize over the summer.”
Sanders is continuing her work on finding a universal clicker for students.
Along with Procurement Services, Sanders hopes to identify a single clicker students will be able to use in all their classes as opposed to buying multiple clickers or software for their various classes.
“I’ve started the procurement process for the safe rides program,” Badeaux said. “Right now, we’re putting together a proposal.”
The safe rides program aims to offer discounted rides through services like Uber or Lyft to students during certain times.
Once the proposal is finished, an open bid will be available for companies to bid on the proposal. The goal is to bring the service to campus by the fall semester, Badeaux said.
“We’re also looking at hashing out our changes specifically to things like [Freshman Leadership Council],” Badeaux said. “We’re hoping to make it more of a Student Government-centered program … and fix the things that people in FLC didn’t like.”
SG also plans to work with the University’s NAACP president and former SG director of policy Monturios Howard and newly appointed SG director of diversity Alex Robertson to figure out ways to optimize the Multicultural Leadership Coalition.
Badeaux notes that the MLC began very strong when it was introduced, but has fallen off toward the end of the year.
“I just want students to see all the stuff we’re working on,” Badeaux said. “For the most part, I’m excited that we’re past [the election] and I’m excited to finally be in office and actually get to carry out some of those things that we worked on for the students.”