After serving on the SGA for a number of semesters, Jackson Smith and Carson Panovec are ready to take on President and Vice President positions this fall.
Smith has been involved with SGA since his freshman year, but running for president wasn’t something he felt called to do from the beginning.
“A few people reached out and encouraged me to run,” Smith said. “I really love Lipscomb and it feels like home to me, so I wanted to have the opportunity to make it a better place.”
Panovec first got involved with SGA when now-president Jordan Beale asked him to become a sophomore senator.
“At first I didn’t think I would have time for SGA, but once I got involved I realized that I loved it,” Panovec said. “I knew that I wanted to eventually become an executive officer.”
Now that they are both going to be in office this fall, Smith and Panovec plan to work together to integrate various student groups, like Campus Life and Athletics.
“We want to encourage students to come out to athletic events, but then we also want athletes to become involved with campus life through events like the dodgeball tournament,” Smith said. “It’s all about creating that two-way street of everyone going out and supporting the other sections of campus.”
In addition to increasing student involvement, Panovec and Smith are anticipating catering to student’s needs.
“I would love to take an hour or so twice a month and just sit in the student center to take requests from students on how to make the campus better,” Panovec said.
Smith is excited to tackle big challenges, but he’s also interested in completing small tasks like adjusting library hours or making slight changes to Sodexo.
“I think we are always looking for ways to benefit students ten years in the future, but what about the ones who are attending Lipscomb right now?” he said. “There are a lot of big things I’d like to do, but I know that it’s the small battles that will make the school a better place.”
Both Smith and Panovec are looking forward to taking charge next fall, but it will come with challenges.
“I’m going to be challenged by time commitments because I have a habit of spreading myself too thin,” Smith said. “I’m going to have to practice a lot of intentionality.”
Panovec said he is more worried about facing obstacles when making adjustments to campus.
“We have a lot of great ideas, but it’s going to be challenging to bring some of them to completion,” Panovec said.
According to Smith, if students want their voices to be heard, they don’t have to be a member of SGA to become involved.
“All students are allowed to come to SGA meetings,” Smith said. “They can help propose new ideas that could get passed to administration.”
Smith said he is looking forward to interacting with the student body.
“We want to encourage students to attend meetings so they can get to know us better,” he said.
The first meeting of the new school year will be Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. in the 1891 lounge across from Bison Cafe, and will continue to meet every other Monday.