The University of Indianapolis Office of Student Affairs announced via email on Wednesday, March 19 that three sets of candidates are running to be the 2025-26 Student Government Association president and vice president. This upcoming election marks the third in the current iteration of SGA. A candidate debate is scheduled for April 2 and voting will run from April 7 at noon to April 14 at noon.
Hammer & Cheshier
Sophomore political science and communication major Chris Hammer is running for SGA president with sophomore business administration and management major Jose Cheshier as vice president. Hammer and Cheshier are known for running the “UIndySH” social media accounts across various platforms, leading the campaign and coining the slogan “from your feed to your future.”
“I have a history of being involved in school government in high school, I was class president my senior year,” Hammer said. “We saw that the student government was getting its feet back together. We felt that we have a pretty big following on our social media account. We feel like we represent a lot of students, so we thought, ‘Hey, let’s take this to the student government.’”
Cheshier added that, from his perspective, he has seen negative feedback pertaining to the current student government. With Hammer’s previous experience in student government and their social media presence, they felt now is the time to run and change that.
“We picked each other as running mates because our skills complement each other,” Hammer said. “Jose is really good at designing graphics and doing a lot of the technical work. I’m really good at doing a lot of the public speaking, a lot of the shaking hands, you know, kissing babies, that stuff.”
The main goal of Hammer and Cheshier’s campaign is to give “everybody a louder voice on campus,” according to Hammer. Citing general complaints at UIndy such as the quality of the pool table in Schwitzer and raising tuition, Hammer would like to find solutions to those issues.
“I think there’s a disconnect right now with the current board, how they just walk around in suits, go to events,” Cheshier said. “I mean, I’ve never seen them before and I feel like students feel like there’s a disconnect — like they’re basically the university and extension of the university. So instead of that, we want a direct line ….”
If elected, Hammer plans on choosing his cabinet on a “case by case basis,” and that he already has a couple people in mind. Hammer wants to avoid just giving his friends positions, adding that he is looking for the most qualified people to fill the cabinet positions.
Johnson & El-Shahat
Jo’Tan Johnson and Johara El-Shahat, who are running for Student Government Association president and vice president, respectively, want to continue the growth of SGA.
Johnson is a junior criminal justice major, with pre-law and law enforcement concentrations and minors in sociology and race and ethnic studies; he currently serves as the vice president of SGA in the cabinet of Mallory Thompson. El-Shahat is a sophomore social work major, with an honors concentration and minors in psychology and criminal justice. El-Shahat also serves in SGA as the college representative for the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences. Johnson said he and El-Shahat met in SGA.
Johnson said his campaign has three specific initiatives: dedication, transparency and empowerment. El-Shahat said she wants to show that SGA members are, in her opinion, dedicated and actively understand student concerns. El-Shahat said her focus on transparency is both to alert students when changes are made and give updates on actions taken if a change can not be made quickly. El-Shahat wants to empower students to be more involved on campus.
“We want to empower students, because I know that there’s been a lot of low morale with maybe going to classes,” she said. “Not necessarily pride in school, but just being, like, actively into RSOs or sporting events.”
El-Shahat said she wants to build “a face of, not that like we love school, but we really do love UIndy and being here.”
“Let’s make our campus vibrant,” Johnson added.
Johnson also said he wants to continue to build on the foundation laid by Thompson’s board.When selecting his and El-Shahat’s cabinet, Johnson said he plans to use a process similar to Thompson’s. Johnson described it as like a hiring process, where candidates apply and interview for specific roles in SGA. Johnson said he would look at different strengths applicants bring to potential roles, including potentially recommending someone to a role other than what they applied to if he thinks it suits them well. El-Shahat said that while not everyone who applies will get a role, she still wants students to be involved. Johnson said SGA meetings would be open to all students.
El-Shahat said she and Johnson will try to address every concern brought to them by students, making as many changes as they can themselves, but also being unafraid to ask other departments if needed.
El-Shahat said that if she thinks someone is not the best person for a role, she is not afraid to let someone else take it on. However, she said it was important for SGA to listen to student concerns and work to address the issues as best they can, which can sometimes include understanding root issues before addressing the surface-level issues.
McGee & Seymour
Second year business major Griffin McGee is running for student body president, and third year psychology student Colin Seymour is running as his vice president. McGee and Seymour met as teammates on the UIndy football team and soon became friends.
“We’ve been buddies for two or three years,” Seymour saidSeymour said. “We compete with each other every day. I think we’re a very great fit for each other.”
McGee said that their goals are to improve UIndy’s overall community engagement, attendance at extracurricular events and diversity on the SGA board.He said that he hopes these changes will create a more positive community at UIndy. He said these three things all go into providing a better student experience.
“If we can improve aspects of each of those regards, our student life will be much more upbeat and positive, and especially with the community engagement that not only affects the university, but it affects our society,” McGee said.
To improve community engagement, McGee and Seymour said they want to plan more events similar to the annual Pack the House night. According to UIndy Athletics, Pack the House includes giveaways, music and celebrations to encourage students to support the UIndy basketball teams. Seymour said he and McGee hope to plan similar events to encourage more student participation at other athletic events.
McGee and Seymour also said they want to make the student government or cabinet more diverse. McGee said it is important for everyone at UIndy to feel represented by their student government.
“If you look in Shreve Atrium, we’ve got 55 countries, but we only have 15 seats on our board,” McGee said. “We do have some good representation there, but I feel like it could be better. I feel like if we get that representation, that will help bring in different RSOs’ athletic teams, and I think that will create more student engagement and give everybody their own voice.”
To make students feel more represented within the student government, McGee and Seymour said that they plan to have SGA work more closely with the Student Leadership & Activities Board (SLAB). Seymour said both organizations work to make student experience better, so it is logical that they would work together.
“SLAB and SGA are kind of side by side, but I think we should kind of make them work together because … a big thing for us is more community involvement and more extracurricular involvement,” Seymour said. “If SLAB and them work together, we can make more things like L/P events.”
Additionally, McGee and Seymour want to encourage students to participate in community service. McGee said he plans to create a day where students can get a free credit hour for participating in a community service project.
“Last year, we had the solar eclipse, and we got a day off school, and you had an opportunity to take a free course for one free credit hour,” McGee said. “I think we should do something like that. We could have a mental health sort of thing at the end of the year, and it would be very centered around community engagement. Whenever you take that day off, you could go do a community service project, like with a cohort, an advisor, a teacher.”
If McGee and Seymour are elected, they plan to keep students’ feedback in mind when making decisions. They said that they want the student body to feel connected to SGA.
“At the end of the day, we’re serving the student body,” Seymour said. “The student body is not serving us. We are not on a level higher than them. We are on the same level working towards the same goal. So, if they come to us with a problem about us, absolutely, we are 100% open to change. We want everybody to feel welcomed and we want everybody to be fulfilled with their college experience.”
