Devon Skinner, David Muñoz-Sarabia elected for 2021-2022 SGA President, Vice President with continued record-low turnout

April 09

21:36 2021

Print This Article Share it With Friends

Students elected Devon Skinner and David Muñoz-Sarabia as the 2021-2022 Student Government Association’s president and vice president, with turnout decreasing about 6.5 percent from last year’s election.

Skinner and Muñoz-Sarabia secured victory with 589 votes or 60 percent of the total vote. This put them at five votes above outgoing SGA President Michael Luecke and Vice President Cameron Combs, who won with 584 votes in the last election. 1,002 undergraduates voted, or 3.4 percent of the total population. This is down 70 total voters from last year.

As reported last year, turnout continued to decline from previous years. 1,072 students voted in 2020, 1,265 in 2019 and 1,897 in 2018.

The two ran on the “This Starts Now” campaign which focuses on making SGA more accessible to students, addressing transportation concerns and improving on diverse representation within and outside of SGA.

President-elect Skinner said the first step for his administration would be to start communications with Student Housing to implement town halls held inside dorms.

“Doing so will start an outreach effort that goes to the students, not expecting them to come to us,” Skinner said.

Vice President Muñoz-Sarabia said another cornerstone would be accessibility for disabled students.

“The first thing that I will be focusing on as SGA Vice President is working with the Office of Disability Access to make the SGA, more specifically the Senate, more accessible to UNT students,” Muñoz-Sarabia said. “Accessibility encompasses many things like having a sign-language interpreter available during Senate meetings, closed captioning, and other similar initiatives to ensure students are able to tune in.”

Skinner also said he would like to reach out to other organizations outside of SGA to improve advocacy.

“In terms of another step we want to take, outside of internal structuring and hiring, is reaching out and coordinating with student leadership in organizations across campus to communicate ways to best represent student interests,” Skinner said. “We want to reach students across the campus and ensure that their concerns with UNT are addressed and their vision for what UNT can be is fulfilled. For anyone who is unsure about who we are and what we’re advocating for, be on the lookout for our town halls and other outreach opportunities.”

Vice presidential candidate Noah Wyckoff, who ran with Jackson Sweet, said he was “super happy for [Skinner and Muñoz-Sarabia].”

“I echo what I said before—they are both very good men who have UNT’s best interests at heart,” Wyckoff said. “I’m very proud to be at a university that would elect men like them that have so much character. I will always be on their team. I wish them and their administration the best, and I pray God’s blessings to be with them.”

Sweet did not respond to requests for comment from the North Texas Daily.

The following 23 senatorial candidates were also elected to represent 10 different colleges:

College of Business: Kersten Hester
College of Education: Maria Velasco, Aalyhia Shillow
College of Engineering: Andy McDowall, Jady Brown, Meghan McAdams, Michelle Rosal Vargas
College of Health and Public Service: River Bailey
College of Information Write-In: Rachel Lee
College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences/Mayborn School of Journalism: Alejandro Castellanos, TKorian Mosley, Javier Garcia Vasquez, Sophia Vomvoris, Grant Johnson, Saloni Banerjea, Forrest Whitford, Jacqueline Sanchez-Martinez, Isabella Tovar
College of Merchandising, Hospitality and Tourism: Luke Em
College of Music: Beige Cowell
College of Science: Victoria Nguyen, Gracy Shulte
Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science: Ted Kwee-Bintoro

Featured Image: Presidential candidate Devon Skinner speaks during the debate on March 31, 2021. Image by John Anderson

About Author

Scroll Back To Top More Articles From Author

Will Tarpley

Scroll Back To Top

0 Comments

Scroll Back To Top Write Comment

No Comments Yet!

There are no comments at the moment, do you want to add one?

Write a comment

Write a Comment

Scroll Back To Top

Click here to cancel reply.

<script id="mcjs">!function(c,h,i,m,p){m=c.createElement(h),p=c.getElementsByTagName(h)[0],m.async=1,m.src=i,p.parentNode.insertBefore(m,p)}(document,"script","https://chimpstatic.com/mcjs-connected/js/users/de9596854f37498d65b58fa8f/42480106fd1ae582112be0c96.js");</script>

North Texas Daily