Junior Kathryn Trujillo has been elected as the new Executive Vice President of the Student Government Association (SGA) with 91 raw votes.

Trujillo’s goals as an executive board member include making SGA more transparent, and making sure students get the most out of their tuition.

“I want everyone on campus to know who is a part of SGA, what it is we do, and what you’re paying for Budget Allocation Council. It’s around $120. It’s a lot of money, so students should be going out to events, but most students don’t,” Trujillo said. “I would like to help improve communication and engagement on campus, and that mostly begins with our freshmen next year, because it’s a blank slate.”

Trujillo didn’t decide to run for the position until after the deadline had passed, so her campaign was somewhat restricted. First, her name didn’t appear on a ballot, so she had to be elected by write-in votes alone. And second, she was not allowed to participate in the debates.

“I was a little late in the game, but once I decided to actually run for SGA, I was just like, I want to do this,” Trujillo said.

On top of the limitations imposed by SGA policy for late entries, Trujillo is a commuter who attends classes on both campuses, and only has class at Pleasantville on Mondays.

To circumvent the limitations, she made the fact that she was running known to the community in other ways. Her campaign included posting fliers on Facebook, Instagram, and uploading a debate video for people to share. She also attended the debates, even though she could not speak, to gain insight on the positions of other candidates, as well as meet people and expose herself. On her days without classes she would come to Pleasantville and spread the word herself, and on the days that she wasn’t on campus Trujillo relied on the help of her friends to spread the word as well.

“Running was kind of hard because I go to both campuses. I kind of relied on people that I’m close too to help me spread the word,” Trujillo said. “So I’m really grateful for the people that I had around me.”

Trujillo originally decided to run because she felt like it would be a good role for her, based on her experience with the school’s political process beforehand. This year she was a senator for the University Panhellenic Council (UPC) and the Psychology Club.

“I’m not one of those senators who just kind of sits there and takes notes, I understand what the purpose of SGA is.” Trujillo said. “It’s to get everyone together to understand what’s happening on campus, and to pass that information along to the rest of the student body. So I took my role as a senator very seriously.”

Outside of the school’s political process, Trujillo has done many other things on campus.

She is a member of Nu Zeta Phi (NZP) sorority. She is currently a tour guide and the student coordinator for the Spier—a volunteer program that runs Open House, Preview Weekend, and Admitted Students Day. As coordinator, she helps students who want to share their experience at Pace with incoming freshman.

She also was a member of the school’s glee club when she was a freshman, before the club ended when she was a sophomore.

Outside of Pace her hobbies include photography, she was the photography club president in high school, and painting, mainly with watercolors. She was also an education intern for the New York Botanical Garden, helping to coordinate Science programs and activities.

As Executive VP, Trujillo’s role will be to organize the SGA meetings, call them to order, keep track of all the organizations on campus, and what status they have. If a student wants to form an organization on campus, she would aid the student with making their presentations to senate. Once a new organization was formed, Trujillo could also help it obtain voting and speaking status at senate meetings. Her role also includes collecting reports from other executive board members and compiling them into a presentation.