At 12:30 a.m. on April 4 the results came in. Midland senior Anna Owens jumped out of her chair and cheered as she learned she officially won the student body’s vote for Student Government Association president.

Owens was elected SGA president for the 2017-18 academic year with her running mate, Cheboygan sophomore Derek Sturvist.

"I’m just ready to get going,” Sturvist said. "I’m glad to be done with the campaign and am excited to do what we can.”

Central Michigan University is grappling with a projected two-year $20 million budget deficit. Because of this, Owens wants to tranform SGA into more of a project-based registered student organization.

“We want to make sure that we are using our budget and doing what we can to use the resources that already exist on campus,” Owens said.

Owens said if SGA needs to go to the administration to see what type of money they need first-hand, it will do also.

Anna Owens

Now that the election is over, Owens said she cannot wait to start making a change on campus.

"The election was very eye-opening,” Owens said. “I saw a lot of things and we heard a lot of feedback that was disheartening just to know all of the things that we should have been doing or even could have been doing better that we weren’t.”

Owens said it is important to make sure that all RSOs believe their time in SGA is meaningful. This necessity was something Owens had started to realize while she was in the vice president position.

“We want to make sure that we really are tapping into that resource so that we know what we can do to really improve the organization for next year,” Owens said.

One of the main goals that Owens would like to achieve would be to get SGA more involved with the Mary Ellen Brandell Volunteer Center.

Next year, SGA will institute a volunteer coordinator position. The position will work with SGA and the volunteer center to coordinate action the organizations can cooperate on, Owens said.

The volunteer coordinator position is still available.

SGA will meet when the new school year starts, so Owens and Sturvist want every RSO on campus to be a part of SGA and appoint a representative to participate in SGA’s weekly meetings.

“We want to make sure that we are reaching out and letting students know when the meeting times begin and also asking them what they want to see from SGA,” Owens said.

Derek Sturvist

After Owens and Sturvist saw how much they complimented each other, he agreed to be her running mate.

Sturvist became involved with SGA after being elected a senator as a freshman.

“I always thought it was a good channel for making change and a good way for staying connected on campus,” Sturvist said.

Previously, Sturvist had been the SGA City Commission liaison and would like to grow the relationships with the City of Mount Pleasant.

Sturvist said his goal for SGA is to make sure everyone is involved.

“We really want to make sure that everyone in SGA understands what is going on and understands the ways they can navigate the organization,” he said.