Holding a physics student’s pet snake is not a typical part of the campaign trail.

But for junior in human resources Seth Watkins, sophomore in public relations Leala Marlin and junior in material science Willie Kemp, an open policy discussion with student clubs lay the foundation behind their “Friends”-inspired slogan: “We’ll be there for you.”

The Daily Beacon sat down with the candidates to discuss their strategies and aspirations for the Student Government Association if elected.

Q: Why did you decide to run for this year’s election?

SW: I decided to run for the student body presidency because I think I have a real passion for this university. I think I bring a diversity of leadership to SGA, and I really just want what’s best for the university, bringing it together to form one big community, one happy Big Orange family and really being an advocate for the students.

WK: I’ve seen a lot of campus organizations that aren’t often represented equally, and I personally feel I could be that voice in student government because I feel like student government is supposed to represent the entire student body, and I want to represent the entire student body.

Q: What would be your biggest policy point and goal for your campaign?

SW: Safety on campus has been a really big concern, at least in my eyes and in the eyes of students, so we really want to put forth sexual assault education at an orientation session, so students are more educated about what sexual assault is and how to deal with that situation if, unfortunately, it comes upon them. Also, we’re trying to work on our blue light system here, and maybe put more blue lights in so students are safer. If you don’t feel safe at your home, your university, where else are you going to feel safe at?

LM: Being a PR major, I noticed a huge flaw in the way things are communicated through the student government together. They always talk about the disconnect between students and the administration, but I really think the disconnect is further down between the students themselves because if we don’t know what the students actually want how can we convey that accurately to administration?

Seth is always saying that the only time we’re all together is during a football game. That’s what we all push behind. What we’re thinking about doing is having a venue rented out on the campus consistently…where it’s always open, it’s always organized and so we can discuss things that come up on campus.

Q: How have you gone about campaigning and gaining support?

LM: We visited the Society of Physics Students, we visited the LBGTQ+ community. We went all across campus for whoever would take us, basically. The feedback was got back was fantastic, and everyone was really enthusiastic about interacting with student government or potential student government people. We also had a great push on social media.

WK: We have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. We have biographies of ourselves, we have videos of ourselves doing anything and our policy will be posted. We have our platform, but unfortunately have not posted yet, because we wanted to hear from students. We wanted to get the students’ opinions from all the organizations we’ve been to perfected because we are students and we represent all students.

Q: What makes your campaign the best qualified or the best to lead our student government for next year?

WK: We want people to know that we are students. SGA has this appearance that it is a big SGA and, unfortunately, there’s a disconnect because you feel like you can’t approach SGA, but we’re normal students. We want to be approached and I think that’ s what helps qualify us.