And the SGA Presidential Winners Are…

Earlier this month TFC students were given the choice to vote for their SGA president and vice president. After a couple of days of voting, Joshua Bingham and Tim Heath headed to the bridge on the sunny side of campus with an envelope holding the election results of their victory.

Bingham and Heath have been best friends since the day they met about three years ago. The pair met through a Future Scholars weekend during Heath’s freshman year here. “Tim was my first impression of TFC,” Bingham says, “The first time I met him, I slept in his room.” The two have known they wanted to run for SGA together for the past six months or so, Bingham says.

“We both reacted so differently. After I read the letter, I was pretty chill, but Tim starts freaking out. He was super excited, and so was I,” Bingham says. “Ever since then, we’ve been non-stop busy,” Heath adds about the addition of cabinet members earlier this week. “We want the cabinet to not feel like a job you clock in and out of, but a team, a family. We don’t want this to be a business transaction,” Heath says. The plan? Team training sessions and bonding activities in the hopes of creating a unified, accessible SGA for all students. “The goal is to grow together,” Heath says.

Something new the team will be implementing as a part of this vision is executive council office hours. “We want every student to know where the SGA office is, and we want them to feel comfortable walking in there and talking to any of us about anything,” Heath says. “We don’t want there to be a hierarchy between SGA and the student body. We want to work for you."

The team has lots of ideas for improving TFC in the coming weeks. “In the next week or so,” Bingham says, “the plan is to have a menu board outside of the cafeteria. This is one of my biggest pet peeves, and I’m excited to get some stuff done, even if it’s small.” One specific plan Bingham and Heath have is to “bring back the library,” Bingham says. “None of the freshmen know how fun it is to hang with your friends in the library, whether that means studying or struggling together.”

In addition to these changes, Bingham and Heath have been hard at work planning for next semester and the new student orientation. “We have a ton of ideas and things we’re putting in the books. We’re working hard to get some things in the calendar for fall,” Bingham says. “The upcoming freshman didn’t really have a senior year because of COVID-19, so we want to make new student orientation the best it can be,” Heath adds.

Both men have a long iPhone list of ideas and projects they are constantly adding to as they talk to students in the coffee shop or the cafeteria, taking suggestions all the time with the biggest of smiles. Congratulations Bingham and Heath!