{"id":4958,"date":"2024-03-25T18:47:32","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T22:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/?p=4958"},"modified":"2024-03-25T18:47:33","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T22:47:33","slug":"sga-presidential-profile-josh-bates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/2024\/03\/25\/sga-presidential-profile-josh-bates\/","title":{"rendered":"SGA Presidential Profile: Josh Bates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Joshua Bates, a Junior from Rome, New York, is running to be the next SGA President for the 2024-2025 academic year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a history of involvement here at SUNY Cortland, Bates is hoping to create a safe environment to advocate for all students on campus and their mental health. Learn more about the candidate as we explore his journey and aspirations for a more involved and engaged campus community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Previous Experience<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bates is a Junior studying History with a minor in Political Science. Currently, he is the Comedy and Lecture chair of the Student Activities Board (SAB) on campus. This role includes throwing events for the entertainment of the student body, from booking the event spaces and finding the talent to submitting the budget forms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SAB role also requires Bates to hold office hours every week, something that he feels has prepared him to take on the high amount of hours being SGA President would require. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The candidate also highlighted how experience at his off-campus job has allowed him to gain valuable leadership skills. In the position, Bates handles scheduling, delegation of employees, and management. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aspirations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with The Dragon Chronicle, Bates told us his main focus is the mental health of the student body.  \u201cWe need to bring more awareness to resources here on campus and need to expand upon our current resources and open up more for students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, there are three professionals available to help a student body of over 6000. Bates hopes to come up with and implement new strategies to ensure the mental well-being of the campus community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bates also went over how important he thinks involvement is for the success of students. \u201cWhen I came here as a transfer student, I had no clue what to do or what was going on. Didn\u2019t know how to get involved or anything, and luckily I found out about SAB. What I\u2019d like to campaign is getting more students involved and figuring out new ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Commitments During the Presidential Term<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the latest SGA Senate meeting’s Candidacy Forum, candidates were given the opportunity to answer questions from Senior Emily Sommer, the current SGA Vice President. During this time, Sommer inquired about the prospective candidates’ existing commitments and anticipated schedules for the upcoming academic year, recognizing the considerable demands of the SGA Presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bates appeared confident in his ability to take on the role. If he wins the title, Bates will have to step down from his SAB position per SGA rules, which will inevitably free up a lot of time in his schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also went over how he is working closely with his academic advisor to ensure his course load is minimal to be able to focus on his presidential duties. Bates also told the audience he is more than willing to cut back his hours at his off-campus job to ensure he has enough time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reasoning for Running<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked what his reason for running was, Bates answered that he feels change would benefit the student body, and has many ideas on how to go about it. Along with mental health initiatives, Bates wishes to \u201cnot just use existing avenues, but also open up new ones\u201d in terms of campus engagement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Candidacy Forum, Bates took to the audience of SGA representatives from clubs and posed the question \u201cHow can we open ourselves more up to the senate and students as a whole?\u201d This is one major item Bates says he is sure will be on his agenda as President. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t forget that the Student Government Association elections are open to all SUNY Cortland students from April 3rd to 5th on Cortland Connect. To make an informed decision before you vote, take a moment to check out the profiles of other candidates in the News Section<\/a> of our website!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joshua Bates, a Junior from Rome, New York, is running to be the next SGA President for the 2024-2025 academic year. With a history of involvement here at SUNY Cortland, Bates is hoping to create a safe environment to advocate for all students on campus and their mental health. Learn more about the candidate as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":286,"featured_media":4959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/03\/candidtaes-article-covers-1.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/03\/candidtaes-article-covers-1.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Cecile Lessard","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/author\/cecile-lessard\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}