Raymond Baccari and Daniel Costa
News Editor and Asst. News Editor
PROVIDENCE, R.I., — Student Community Government (SCG) President David Blais is stepping down as reported at the Oct. 6 parliament meeting. Blais spoke with News Editor Raymond Baccari and Assistant News Editor Daniel Costa to give his takeaways from the meeting and explain why he is stepping down.
“What I took away from this meeting is that it’s going to be a new era at SCG. There are really great candidates that were elected tonight that are really passionate — and [they] are looking forward to working hard and want to make a significant impact here on this campus. So I’m looking forward to that.”
Blais continued, “The reason I am stepping down is more for personal reasons. I am here to support and root [for] SCG [moving forward].”
Shreena Patel, who was an at-large Parliament Representative, will be serving as SCG’s new President after being elected by those within the Parliament. She is excited to be SCG’s new President, saying, “It was great. I’m excited to make a lot of change here. I’m super excited to meet a lot of new students, [and] to get them involved.”
One of her many responsibilities will be to act as a voice for the students and explain ways to improve life at Rhode Island College directly to the RIC’s President, Frank D. Sánchez. There are a couple of main initiatives Patel plans to take on as President mostly revolving around student finances.
“My main priorities are to hopefully lower the tuition for students and to also get rid of those extra recreational fees that a lot of students don’t use on campus. Because I talked to multiple people and they said they don’t use the [RIC] gym a lot, they have their own [gym] membership.”
Patel continued, “Hopefully we can change some things in Donovan, get some more vegetarian and vegan options for those who are vegetarian [and vegan]. And hopefully getting some more student activities and clubs on campus as well as help the homeless population in Providence too.”
SCG Vice President Aiden Meservy is no longer going to be Vice President.
Daisy Tran ran for the newly open position of Vice President as a write-in candidate. There were no previously declared candidates. Tran is also excited to be in her new role and is looking forward to what the future holds in her new role.
“I’m super excited for this new journey. I’ve always been a member of Parliament, so it’s nice to now have one of the bigger roles, where I can do bigger and better things at RIC because RIC is what you make out of it-, I always say that. It’s nice being able to make changes within Parliament, not only that, but within the school.”
Secretary Brynn Terry and Treasurer Patrick Gibb are also leaving SCG; neither of them ran for any of the Executive Board positions during the meeting.
Nobody declared their candidacy during the two-week declaration period or ran as a write-in candidate for the Secretary, Treasurer, Speaker and Deputy Speaker positions. They will all be vacant until the next meeting.
As for the class elections for the class of 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, those results will be made available on the SCG website.
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