Have you educated yourself on or Student Government for the upcoming elections yet? In case you haven’t, here is some information on the Action Party. They are a group of students who have come together to ‘Take Action’ and better our school as a whole.

The basis for their campaign is that the students are the future of this school and we have to take action to get what we want. Running for president is Nick Vargas, the former president of Inter-Fraternal Council (IFC), VP of the Student Alumni Association, Brother of Sigma Phi Epsilon, an active member of the community. Running for Vice President of his the Action is Alexandra Sao, an active member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority, Secretary of FGCU Democrats, Southern Director for Florida Collegiate Democrats, and Financial Intern for Andrew Gillium’s party. Together they wish to lead the way to a better tomorrow for our university.

Their slogan is A.C.T.I.O.N., which is an acronym for all of their campaign points.

The "A" stands for Academic Excellence. They wish to advance the tutoring services, supply snacks in the library for brain food, a supply of free scantrons, and blue and green books to students during exam times.

The "C" stands for Civic Engagement, meaning they want the students more involved with helping the campus. They want to increase the number of recycling and waste bins, provide monthly days of service work (we need it!), and transfer over to digital advertising on campus. They also wish to create a late-night student ride (called Eagle Watch) that is operated by electric Polaris Gem Cars to ensure late-night safety.

The "T" stands for Tomorrow. They want to install a campus police review board compromised by students, faculty, and staff. They also wish to design an alumni hall in order to increase alumni interaction and include them in the campus life and re-design the campus rec center for a more enjoyable experience.

The "I" in Action represents Improved Student Government. This means creating performance-based reviews of our representatives, monthly forums to connect students to the government on the library lawn, and establish a student government recruitment program to get students more involved.

The "O" stands for Outreach. Outreach includes connecting with the surrounding community, like local high schools, partnering with local businesses to create student job opportunities, and creating a positive presence in the surrounding community for the school.

The final letter "N", my personal favorite, stands for New Beginnings. This platform includes pushing for medical amnesty, installing parking garage capacity centers for better organization an efficiency, establishing a basis for student-organized tailgates, installing an FGCU fountain on the library lawn for the Griffin family, and the ‘Swipe Our Hunger’ which is a program that lets you donate part of your meal plan to hungry children, (yay)!

I then interviewed a few of the candidates for the party in a Question and Answer session on the library lawn.

Q: What platform/policy are you most passionate about:

A: (Nick Vargas, President) “Taking action on outreach in the community. This is because I’ve been in Fort Myers since I was seven years old and have seen FGCU grow as a school since I was little. I believe we need to connect more with the local community that helps make up our university. We need to unify the connections in the area to help the university excel.”

Q: What are you most excited about, if you win?

A: (Alexandra Sao, Vice President) “I am lucky enough to be working with a candidate who not only is not only able to look at things from the perspective of a normal student, but as someone who came to this country as an immigrant from Peru at seven-years-old, not knowing English. So, I know for a fact that I will be able to work alongside someone who has known nothing more than to persevere through their life. I think it is a unique opportunity to be able to say that FGCU is a campus that will have voted for a Latin American immigrant to take the highest position in student government. I know he will be able to do a lot for the multicultural programs. As a middle eastern woman, I have always had a lot of opinions silenced or ignored because of my gender or the color of my skin. I look forward to being given a voice.”

Q: How long have you been preparing and working together?

A: (Both) “Since December.”

Q: What made you want to partake, not only in the student government but also this party:

A: (Pat, Treasurer) “I wanted to make a change and take action that we can tangibly see as a school. I want to set realistic goals that affect the whole student body. I want to give this beautiful place the college campus feel and town feel, which starts here.”

This is our future as a school. Students advocating for other students. No matter what you vote, make sure you know everything about the people and their goals.

Good luck to all!