Schyler Burney, junior in economics, was elected as the new vice president for Auburn University's Student Government Association, elections officials announced at callouts on Tuesday night.
Burney, who was formerly a student senator representing the students of the College of Liberal Arts, ran for the position of SGA vice president unopposed this year.
Burney said that her first goal as SGA's new vice president will be to help educate the newly-elected senators on their roles and how best to listen to and represent the student body.
"After tonight, not only am I in office, but we have 30 or 40 senators and so one of my main goals this year is to successfully train them to take on the role that they've been elected to do," Burney said. "[We'll] hit the ground running with getting that training kind of organized and set up and ready for them to get into office and get them equipped to understand what senate is, what their new role is and kind of how parliamentary procedure works and how they're going to work to represent their students' voice."
Burney said that the first obstacle between her and her goal of strengthening the level of communication between the Senate and the student body will be getting some of the new senators prepared for the role.
"Some people may not have been to a senate meeting and know what they're run like, what they look like or fully understand what their role is," Burney said. "I think kind of stepping over that hurdle for sure will be one of the biggest challenges in the next couple of weeks."
With the announcement of a runoff election that will decide the next SGA president, Burney said she is confident in her ability to work effectively with the new president no matter who it will be.
"Everbody that's running [for SGA president] I have worked with in some capacity for the most part," Burney said. "I believe this weekend we start exec interviews for the rest of our executive cabinet and so [I'm] looking forward to working with whoever it is and I know they're going to be great in the role that they're taking on and I'm excited that I'm going to be working with them."
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