On Tuesday, April 22nd at 3:30 PM, Suffolk County Ammerman Campus students gathered at the Babylon Student Center’s Montauk Point Room for a highly anticipated event: the introduction of their next year’s 2025-2026 Student Government Association’s (SGA) Executive Board candidates. Its importance was well known, as whomever would be elected into the next E-Board for SGA would have great influence and effect over the student life of those attending Ammerman Campus for the following academic year.
The candidate introduction/interview was led by the current SGA President, Sammy DiPiazza, and SGA Vice President, Dominic Llivicura. The two stood at the podium as they introduced the candidates running for next year’s SGA E-Board with the lineup consisting of the Student Trustee candidate, Danna Floyd; two Presidential candidates, Faisal Mehmood and Jonathan Gochez Hernandez; Vice President candidate, Nova Ventura-Rios; and lastly the Secretary candidate, Rifa Tasfia. The Treasurer position for SGA has an entirely different process of election, and therefore, they don’t have to do the formal campaign like the other SGA E-Board Officer Position roles.
President DiPiazza opened by explaining the structure and rules of the candidate meeting, in which each candidate was given five minutes of speech time and five minutes to answer questions from the student audience listening. If the candidate finished their speech sooner than the five minutes, then the remaining five minutes would be added to their interview runtime.
The Student Trustee candidate, Danna Floyd went first. Although she primarily attends classes on the Eastern Campus due to her being part of the Nursing Program, Ammerman Campus remains her official “home” campus. Floyd highlighted her background in leadership, noting that during high school she served on the National Committees, Youth Council for her tribe and state—she is Native American—and adds that she has met with senators and governors. Expressing her motivation for the Student Trustee position, Floyd stated, “I think that it is important that we have a voice. As Student Trustee, she would be involved in several committees and things that happen behind the scenes that would affect you here as students.”
After Floyd, the first Presidential Candidate, Faisal Mehood, gave his speech. Aspiring to be a police officer, candidate Mehood hoped to become the next Student Government Association’s President to help impact the lives of students, and to be able to use his studies in law and politics to do so. Mehood has been part of the Student Government Association since Fall 2024, and he aims to increase the number of SGA members for next year, along with increasing student empowerment.
aims to increase the number of SGA members for next year, along with increasing student empowerment.
Within his speech, Mehood stated a few hopes he had to address the food concerns of students via brand deals and increase diversity on campus through community. He explained he planned to talk to higher state legislators and even the House of Representatives to help make the changes to student life as needed. When interviewed by the student audience, asking about concerns of mental health diversity or what he directly knew about SGA, those concerns were half-heartedly addressed, and some not addressed at all.
Second Presidential Candidate, Jonathan Gochez Hernandez, went forward and gave his speech. Candidate Hernandez had been a member of the Student Government Association in their Public Relations Committee and also became a Student Senator. Hernandez aspired to create more opportunities for people to be more involved and engaged by hoping to increase resources for the multilingual community at Suffolk. Not just for the attending students, but also for their family or support system behind them that gives them the ability to get them to go to Suffolk. Hernandez also addressed the food concerns of students through advocacy for increasing healthier and cheaper options, whether through increasing the food pantry services, bringing in local vendors, or partnering with other brands for student discounts.
Upon being interviewed for mental health diversity concerns, Hernandez replied, “The resources we have here on campus aren’t known. For example, there’s a lot of people that don’t know we have the mental health office, or the financial office, or the international office, or the student affairs office. I wanna make sure these resources are known to students so that they can take advantage of and use them.” Hernandez expanded on this by connecting mental health concerns to SGA by wanting to increase the SGA community so that those mentally struggling students can feel safe and welcomed to the association, and to talk to him about any concerns by giving them a voice. Overall, Hernandez’s stance on how he’d change the student body life would be through increasing active resource support for those struggling, community diversity, presence, and awareness for the two aforementioned goals.
Once Hernandez exited the podium, Vice President Candidate, Nova Ventura-Rios, took the microphone. Candidate Rios’ speech consisted of thanking those who supported her growth and explained her background within SGA as being part of the Public Safety Committee as well as Student Senator. Rios aspired to expand and reach more people on campus to cater to changes that need to be made, as she is part of the Hispanic and Latino community, which prompted her to want to increase multicultural awareness. Midway through the speech, Rios briefly switched to Spanish to directly address Hispanic and Latino students’ concerns by emphasizing the need for leaders from diverse backgrounds to achieve multicultural goals and encouraged members in her community to support her candidacy in the 2025 SGA elections.
During the student audience interview, Rios was questioned about other cultures beyond just the Hispanic community (such as Middle Eastern, Asian, etc) and if she has plans to increase their awareness and diversity on campus. In response, Rios said that because in her experience she is not fluent in those cultures, she hopes to reach out to those communities regardless, and become the bridge that connects these cultures altogether by reaching out to those within those personally involved in those communities. “At the end of the day, my goal is to be inclusive to everybody, and if it can’t be through myself, it’s going to be through other people,” was her response. She elaborated more on her better mapping and signage campaign listed on her social media, explaining she hopes to make the campus map design to be more better and simpler for students. Rios’ overall stance for other interview questions was to take action via presence, community, awareness, and events.
After Rios, the Secretary Candidate, Rifa Tasfia began her speech. Although short and unprepared, Tasfia explained her credentials as it being her first semester and made her way up from a regular SGA member to a PR Committee Co-Chairman and SGA Student Senator, causing her to want to run for the Secretary position on the executive board. Rifa added that she also worked with the Executive Dean Rios, essentially doing secretary work already, and believed she’d do best as a supportive role to the future SGA President and Vice-President. Her speech was short, allowing her to move on to answering the audience’s questions and giving her extra time for that.
During that questioning, Tasfia answered inquiries on what programs she uses (such as Canva) to help reach out to students and asked how she planned to help other club organization leaders be more involved. Tasfia’s rhetoric was similar to other candidates, which is to raise awareness for programs, clubs, and other resources on campus that were not as well known. A member of the student audience, Mateo Valentino, Vice-President of the Society of Writers, a campus club, brought up a concern as a club leader, which was how to handle the time conflicts of so many clubs occurring around the same date and time. Tasfia responded, “For that, I feel like the biggest way to address that is to meet with all the student leaders who host these clubs and find times that don’t overlap.” She hopes to meet with the Executive Dean as secretary to push initiatives to address student concerns. Tasfia’s interview portion was long, but insightful into how she plans to go forward as the Secretary of SGA’s next year’s e-board.
Though the candidate meeting was only an hour, it was an event that brought students together, allowing awareness and communication to occur between the student body and the SGA election candidates of 2025. Despite the meeting’s seriousness, students and candidates shared moments of laughter.
Voting takes place from Monday, April 28th, through Friday, May 2nd, and the entirety of the Ammerman Campus’ Student Body can vote. SGA Meetings occur at the Babylon Student Center in the Mildred Green Room on Tuesdays from 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM, which is where students can go to find out more about SGA and how to vote.
In the words of President DiPiazza, stay tuned for the results of Suffolk County Community College’s Student Government Association 2025 Elections of Ammerman Campus!
