By ELLIOT AVE-LALLEMANT AND ADELINE TRAMMELL
After a very interesting election cycle, the Beloit Student Government executive board has been decided. The Beloit students elected new president Frank Hooton’26, new vice president Shobhita Bharadwaj’27, new funding board director Helmi Kawsar’27, and new communications director Snigdha Dasoondi’28. This latest BSG election had a very low turnout compared to previous years, with only one contested position in this whole election. It took another four days to meet a quorum (25% of students).
We had the chance to interview Frank Hooton and Shobhita Bharadwaj about their plans for their time as executives.
Frank Hooton’26 won the presidency, in an unopposed race. His biggest goal is that he wants to boost student engagement. One of the ways that he plans to do this is by bringing more representation to the club funding process by including COO (Club Organization Oversight) and club representatives. Hooton recalls that “Last spring [COO reps and club reps] were completely removed from the funding process. We used to have one representative per executive member in the student government and now we don’t. Now it’s just left up to the executive members.”
Hooton tells us that club funding directly impacts student engagement, as clubs could have lots of student members but not any funds to accomplish the goals of the club. Hooton argues that this is why it is crucial to bring more representation to the funding process; “If a club doesn’t have enough funding, then it’s going to tank your numbers. This isn’t limited to just the Round Table too, say Aardvark Authors or Finannance Club, OEC. The thing is that [the clubs] have a lot of members, but now, they don’t even get to represent themselves in the funding process.”
Another key aspect of Hooton’s plan to bring back student engagement is bringing the campus together through different events; “Right now, we have campus divided among three different groups. You’ve got the student body that’s unaffiliated,which is student government, clubs/organizations, everything under that umbrella, you have Greek life, and then you have student athletes. My goal is that I want to bring everything together.” says Hooton, who says that the “student body should apply to everyone.” Hooton’s vision is to have different clubs work together and create a network to bring different communities on campus together.
“I want to work with Greek life and improve their communication and collaboration with certain clubs, and I want to get the Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC) involved as well. If I can work out an infrastructural network between us, and then see if I can get collaborative events between certain fraternities or sororities with other clubs, and with student athletes, I think we can have a much broader campus community than we already do.”
Hooton and his team running for BSG executive positions sparked skeptical posts on the @naughtyturtle confessions page on Instagram, questioning if a group of friends running for office was going to be good for objective decision-making. Hooton’s response to this goes back to his previous goal of bringing back more representation in the funding process; “I believe it is in everyone’s best interest if we bring back [COO and club] representatives to the funding process and increase them threefold. So for every one executive, there would be three representatives. This way, you eliminate bias and increase diversity in the funding process.”
Hooton also acknowledges the people that came before him, saying that they built a solid foundation that he plans to build on; “I think that the people who were elected were highly competent and ambitious people. I still have a lot of respect for them. I think Camille Ledoux is a fantastic leader. I think Jasmin Bowers is a fantastic leader and organizer. They’re both incredible people, I’m really fond of them. They set a model and an example by which to go by.”
The position of vice president was the only race that was contested, and that seat was won by Shobhita Bharadwaj‘27. Shobhita is a sophomore from India and is majoring in international relations.
The main role of the Beloit Student Government is to serve as a liaison between the administration and the student body. However, Shobhita says she wants the organization to be more helpful than that, and that the student body should be able to come to them with their problems.
Shobhita says that “nobody really knows about the student government on campus, and you can tell by the amount of emails we had to send to meet quorum.” Shobhita agrees with Hooton that the main reason turnout was low was because of a lack of options on the ballot; “That just signals to me such great potential for active citizenship,” she says, “but nobody wants to do it because it’s just not out there. People don’t care.” Because of this she aims to increase awareness about the existence of BSG, and hopes to eventually create a webpage for BSG that’s accessible through the Beloit College website.
Despite the seeming lack of engagement, the club has big goals. Shobhita hopes to achieve more cross-club interaction, saying that “there are communities that just don’t interact with each other… and that creates tension.” She says it’s necessary to “make people uncomfortable and have those uncomfortable conversations.”
Another goal Shobhita has is to increase transparency from the administration, saying that students feel they do not know what goes on behind the scenes. She says that she often hears that students do not know what the administration does and that there is no follow up after complaints are made. This is obviously a problem, and she acknowledges that it’s their job as the student government to make sure that students feel their voices are heard.
This seems like this new group of executive members are ready and committed to making Beloit College a better place for clubs.
Featured Image: Beloit College
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