This article expresses the views of its author(s), separate from those of this publication. Readers are encouraged to comment or submit a Letter to the Editor to share their opinions. To submit a Letter to the Editor, follow the instructions here.
Going into this election, the SAM Party would like to point out that while more efficient funding for clubs, improved events on campus, and work with the transparency of funding for large campus events like OzFest are at the head of our goals, representing our wonderful student body is what drives us to work for these initiatives.
The SAM Party consists of members that represent the commuter students and the on-campus students. We have people from all different programs on campus like Communications, Engineering, Transportation and Logistics, and more. Our diversity in our political party is to better represent the large 17,000 student population that currently attends UNF.
UNF currently houses over 200 clubs with the Osprey Involvement Center, and we want to make sure that each one of those clubs can best represent their interests, and the culture of their club, as it directly reflects our students’ wants and needs as they study here on campus. SAM Party, while being newer to the Student Government operations, has the strongest connections to clubs on campus. We have candidates that represent multiple clubs. I myself work with UNF Esports, UNF Shakespeare, UNF Honors Student Union, and UNF Frisbee to name a few clubs.
SAM Party firmly believes that the students on campus can be best represented by allowing for clubs to have more streamlined funding and to have better access to the means to request that funding. We have sent some of our candidates, like Senate Candidate Kielbasa and current Senator Slaughter, to different clubs to help show that we are physically present and will listen to the feedback of students.
The SAM Party values every student on this campus, their opinion, and wants to work to make sure those students’ opinions can reflect better changes to the future of this campus. We want to make UNF go from being a college to being a home.
__
Editor’s Note: Horatio Gilman and Will Raffier represent the SAM Party and are running for student body president and vice president in the Spring 2025 student government election. Gilman and Raffier are current members of the SG Senate. To view Spinnaker’s candidate profile on Gilman and Raffier, click here.