The current Student Association president and vice president will run unopposed to lead the student governing body next year.

Both candidates, SA President Emily Nassir and SA Vice President Shelby Gallaro will be running to be reappointed to their current seats. After handing their completed petitions of 500 student signatures into Senate, they affirmed their candidacies this past week.

The elections will be held on March 14th and 15th.

For the fourth year in a row, the candidate running for SA president has been unopposed.

Nassir was surprised that no one was running against her but thinks the position is unopposed because it offers so much of a challenge that most students become less interested.

“I think students are unaware of the opportunity that they have on this campus but I also think that this position specifically is so rigorous that even if students have the interest, when they find out the inner workings of it, the time commitment and the limitations in terms of the other involvement, they get scared and then they don’t want to get involved,” Nassir said. “I think the commitment is what scares people off. It is one of those things that you really need to know how SA works in order to be able to really fulfill the position and do it to the best of your ability.”

This is the first time SA has conducted election on a ticket, meaning two candidates, president and vice president, run as a team rather then individually.

The reason for the switch, according to Nassir, comes from a look into other schools’ student associations.

“We are always talking about how can we make the election process more legitimate, how we can make it something that people can respect, that people want to be involved in,” Nassir said.

As the current SA president and SA vice president, Nassir and Gallaro will continue in office for the next academic year. According to Gallaro they use this remaining semester as an adjustment period into their recently earned positions.

“I was the chair of [the] involvement [committee] but going into an executive position from that is very different than you would expect so it takes some adjusting time,” Gallaro said. “So I feel like I am going to have my adjustment period before April 1 which is the swear-in date. So I would be able to accomplish more in my term then I would have previously.”

According to Nassir, they are student-centered and when collecting signature for their petitions, students would ask about what they would do for them. In response Nassir and Gallaro would always reply, “What do you want us to do for you?”

Despite being unopposed, both candidates believe that they are the best people to continue in this position.

“I know I can speak for both of us and say that there is something special about the two of us running together is that we are running based on passion,” Nassir said. “This is not a career advancement in any sort for either of us.”

In the upcoming weeks, SA plans to do station polling tables located on Lakeside, west side of campus and in the Marano Campus Center

where students can access the polls through Laker Life.