Giuliana Islas, Emily Saldana and Keith Elder The Xavierite
On Apr. 3, President of SXU Keith Elder, Ph.D., along with Student Government Association (SGA) President Giuliana Islas and Student Activities Board (SAB) President Emily Saldana served pizza to students in the Diner Atrium and discussed their plans for the future of the university.
The event lasted from 11 A.M to 1 P.M and saw the three presidents engaging with students while serving pizza, salad, and drinks, all provided by the university’s Country House staff.
Elder stressed that as he begins his presidency, the opinions of the student body will influence how he operates in the future. In the short term, he would like to gather the opinions of students and staff, and use that information to create a long term plan for the university.
In reference to the student body, he said that “What I really need to know is what’s going well for you all. Because we’re only in business because of the students, so what’s working well for the students, what needs to improve for the students, and how can we improve student outcomes?”
When asked where he’s eager to begin work as president, Elder said he wants to focus on “student satisfaction and student retention.” He said that these are “key foundations in a university,” and that he’s interested in finding out “what we can do to help our students stay, and help our students graduate, and have good professional careers, but also good lives.”
He also said that he’s interested in helping students find internship opportunities as early as their freshman year, so that they can be sure of their career path as soon as possible.
Elder said finally that he wants to help students feel like they belong on campus. He wants the campus to feel “vibrant and live.” Likewise, he wants students to feel like they are a part of a larger community.
He also wants to know “what we can do to create more space, more opportunities, more majors for students so they can feel they have a vast array of opportunities at Saint Xavier.”
As Islas transitions out of her presidency, she is “very hopeful” about the future of Saint Xavier. She believes that the university is heading toward a “period of transformation” and is excited to see where the campus goes in the future.
She stated that, “I think with the new president, there’s going to be a lot of positive changes. I already feel like I’m seeing students wanting to get more involved and also seeing administration wanting to be more involved with the students,”
In her time as president of SGA, Islas hopes that she’s helped bring a sense of pride to the student body.
“I think I’ve done a lot for bringing students together and kind of trying to show students that SXU is a fun place to be at. Through things like spirit week and homecoming, and kind of trying to bring back the spirit of RSOs on campus,” she said of her time with SGA.
Islas finished by saying, “I really hope that there’s more spirit at SXU now, and I hope that part of that is because of the work that I did.”
In the future, Saldana said that students can expect “bigger and better events.” With a lot of the board for SAB being recent members, she said that, “I think we’re gonna be able to kind of increase that experience at a higher level.”
SAB will continue to work with SGA on annual events such as “Build-A Champ” and Spring Formal. There are currently no other collaborations planned between the two organizations, but Saldana is open to working with SGA on more events if its what the students want.
For more information on SGA and SAB, readers can keep up with them on The Den, or follow them on Instagram. SGA also holds weekly meetings on Friday at noon which are open to the public.
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