UNF’s political scene welcomes another new party, the Inspire Party, that was just established this semester. 

With a tagline of “Inspiring Ospreys to Swoop and Soar to New Heights,” the party is led by co-chairs Lucas Richter and George Boston. Richter, the Presidential candidate, is the former Chief Justice of Student Government. Similarly, Boston, the Vice-Presidential Candidate, is the former Deputy Chief Justice of Student Government. 

Spinnaker interviewed Richter and Boston to talk about their party’s history, overarching themes, and plans for the upcoming election.

“I really saw, having been in SG for a long time, the election season last fall and it was very divisive. It seemed like it got away from the issues at hand and it seemed like there were a record number of election violations. Students weren’t getting their needs met, especially with COVID. I feel like we’ve exposed a lot of issues that have lain dormant, and they’ve now come to life. I felt passionate about getting involved and, given my extensive experience with Student Government, I wanted to take a shot at helping students,” said Richter about his drive to create the Inspire Party.

While their vision contains a variety of objectives, the co-chairs spoke about the party’s three main goals: lowering the cost of education, increasing engagement with students, and increasing funding for clubs. 

“Inspire is really committed to increasing the amount of engagement that SG does with the student body in general, said Boston. That means being more active on our social media platforms, which means increasing our Instagram presence, putting ourselves on Twitter, and even branching out to TikTok.”

Co-chair Richter heavily stressed that he believed in the importance of clubs at UNF, stating:

“Funding for our clubs means, to me, diversity. I feel like I see that word thrown around a lot, increasing diversity, but what does that mean? I feel like it’s a talking tool but increasing funding for our clubs is what will actually achieve that. Making sure that clubs that want to start up, whether it be ethnic, religious, different interests as far as extracurriculars. We need to get them better funding and that means revamping our student involvement center. It also means revamping the club funding board, increasing the limit to $2,000 for clubs so they don’t have to go through the student government directly to ask for funds, they can get it more easily.”. 

Even in a difficult time plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic, Richter highlighted the party’s focus on, “getting the art department out there, getting the music department out there, getting athletics to show off what they do. Because when we come together as a campus, the students are more engaged, we increase enrolment, all the other benefits that come from that.”

Initiatives of the Inspire Party include, but are not limited to:

• Improving upon existing initiatives (ex: SKYS)
• Increasing funds for printing at the library
• Reintroduce an opportunity for students to receive discounts in the community around campus (ex: gas, grocery stores, etc.)

“All three of our talking points really come down to getting students ready, and inspiring them to swoop and soar to new heights when things do go back to normal,” said Presidential candidate Lucas Richter COVID is not always going to be a thing, it will change a lot, but it doesn’t mean we can’t bounce back better than ever.”.

 The Inspire Party is passionate about making sure that Student Government is serving students.

Spinnaker will continue to keep you updated as the election season continues to unfold.

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