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SGA imposes strong outlook for students

By Andrew Scarpaci, Sports Editor

Robert LaPollo, courtesy of SGA

Since Fall 2021, Senior Business Administration major Robert LaPollo has been president of SGA and is leading the way for all the achievements made under the organization. LaPollo has had many proud moments over his time in the program.

“One is bringing the program back because, like many other organizations, COVID didn’t help. Our presence on campus wasn’t as strong last year, and it was my goal to bring the name back to the organization,” he said. “Allow people to know that SGA is here for you. We’re providing for the student body and we’re doing things that can better their LIU experience”. 

According to LaPollo, working with administration has been pivotal to working on behalf of the students. Last fall, one of SGA’s major early accomplishments was getting the students back in the gyms. They pressured administration to get it done quickly, and they succeeded in getting them reopened.

“We have a fantastic relationship with [the] administration right now. In the past, it wasn’t always that way. SGA wasn’t as involved with administration, and now it’s been my goal to reach out to them and let them know that we want to work with them because working together can yield the best results for the LIU community as a whole,” he said. “I meet with Michael Berthel every other week, and we have a fantastic relationship. He cares about the student body. There are certain things that we might not necessarily agree on what would be best, but it’s always my job to take the side of the students and gauge what they’re looking for, and then we go to him, we talk about it and I work hard to make sure that he knows what they want because that’s ultimately my job.”

LaPollo believes SGA should play a prevalent role in the campus community and wants everyone to know that they are students, for the students.

“Last semester, we had a banquet where we invited student leaders and some members of the faculty. The goal of that was not only to bring everybody together but share the SGA message with student leaders so that they can then relay it onto their organizations,” he said. “By letting people know that we can make real change and we have the ability to talk to people who can make a direct change, and if you look around campus, we’ve seen it already.”

LaPollo emphasizes that sometimes it is necessary to be tough on administration, and it’s something he is more than willing to do if necessary.

“We have to be tough on administration because if they’re not producing for the students in a way that we think is appropriate, if the students are asking for something repeatedly and they’re not getting it, then it’s our job to be tough on that, and really double down and make sure that their needs are being heard. As president of the SGA, that’s always something that I do,” he said.

LaPollo is excited about what SGA was able to accomplish last semester and the pace for growth.

“So last semester was mainly about getting the program back because we were kind of starting at a point where we didn’t have an identity. We weren’t really as known on campus, so it was our goal to get that message out,” he said. “We are increasing our presence on social media. We started posting more to keep the public up to date with what we’re working on. We have committees that go around campus, and they look at things that need to be fixed or things that could potentially be added.”

LaPollo has no plans on stopping or slowing down from the progress made at Post. He is working hard on growing the presence of student voices via GroupMe.

“We’ve been able to create The Student Body chat, which we’re really happy about. We have a little over 400 people in there right now, so I’ve been proud of getting the word out with SGA,” he said. “The more people that are in there, the more voices we can hear. So we want to increase outreach. We want to go and talk to more people to come and fix things on campus. There are glaring issues that you know people bring up to us sometimes that we wouldn’t necessarily notice if they didn’t.”

LaPollo wants students to know they can come to SGA with any concerns or desires to start new clubs.

“We’re always active on Instagram. You can shoot us a DM, and we will be posting a lot more information through there about the university and our program specifically and with The Student Body GroupMe,” he said. “If you post a concern there, one of us will see it as a member of the executive board, whether it’s myself or any of the other individuals. I find that a lot of times when one person has an issue with something, 20 other people or more have the same issue, so putting that in GroupMe is even better.”

As for new clubs, LaPollo ensures everyone’s voices are heard and hopes to expand ideas to fit anyone’s interests in the campus community.

“We’re very open-minded. We approve all sorts of different clubs, so anyone can go to experience Shark Nation through Promise, and then once they have 10 to 15 members in their organization, they can email SGA, and we will give them a date to come in for approval,” LaPollo said.

LaPollo truly believes in the campus community and ensures SGA will work to meet the needs of every student.

“We are going to reach out to the students to get the students’ ideas and concerns, but we would like them to reach out to us as well. We would really encourage people to contact us as much as possible, and I don’t care how controversial it is,” he said. “Our relationship with the administration is fantastic, and we have a lot of respect for them, but I’m not afraid to bring those controversial issues to their desk if it needs to because our job is to represent the student body. Use your voice if you see an issue, don’t be afraid to share it with everyone else as well, and that’s how we could bring the community closer.”

Reach out to SGA on their Instagram @liupostsga and email them at post-sga@my.liu.edu

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