Courtney Ponson, marketing junior from Harvey, was recently named president of the Student Programming Association for the fall semester of 2003 and spring semester of 2004, after no other candidates were nominated for the position.
“It felt really good to not have opposition and that student life has enough trust in me to think I was good enough for the position,” Ponson said.
The usual running process starts in January when anyone who is interested in running for SPA president goes to student life to fill out an application. The application is then sent to records for processing. The applicant will be approved once he or she has been verified to be a full time student who has earned at least 45 credit hours. The candidate receiving the most votes from the student body is then declared the new president.
According to James Irwin, mass communication senior from Morgan City and current SPA president, there has not been an election for an SPA president since the 1998 SPA president election.
“I feel Courtney will do well as the SPA president. Even though this is her first year in SPA, she has served as the special events chairman and she quickly learned the ropes. Courtney seems to have a grasp of the presidency role and the willingness to make decisions and to put out the fires will be inevitable,” Irwin said.
Even though Ponson did not get to campaign, she is fairly well known around campus. Ponson is involved in many on-campus organizations and activities. Ponson is the vice president of Delta Sigma Theta, a member of Delta Sigma Pi, business fraternity, national communications chair for the resident halls association, assistant hall director in Ellender, secretary/treasurer of the food advisory and secretary of the National Pan-Hellenic Council. Ponson has said the benefit of running unopposed was that she had less headaches and nothing extra to add to her already busy schedule.
“I will let my actions speak for myself,” Ponson said.
“Courtney will be a more socially oriented SPA president,” Tameka Patterson, family consumer and science junior and current SPA sectary/treasurer from St. Rose, said.
Ponson’s goal for the SPA is to move forward and to recruit more members to set up all the SPA events. Ponson said that regarding the SPA, she will have “an open doors policy.” She also said she will publicize SPA more to the students, so that the attendance levels for events will increase.
Ponson said she feels the significance of the SPA is that it is an organization for the students and will help in their college experience. By joining the SPA, Ponson said she has gained skills in organizing events and learned time management and responsibility.
“For 2003 I am positive there will be more members and the SPA will move onto bigger and better things. I also plan to coordinate more interaction with the Greek organizations,” Ponson said.
To recruit more members for the SPA, Ponson said the SPA will be holding recruitment parties. The SPA will inform incoming freshman about the recruitment parties at all the orientations.
The SPA is currently accepting applications for vice president, secretary, treasurer, and the six-committee heads. Anyone interested in an SPA position will have to fill out an application and then be interviewed by Irwin, Ponson and the SPA E-board.
“This year I felt the SPA did very well; I was extremely happy with the readership program and Winterfest. All the events such as Winterfest have been well attended but the best is yet to come with Crawfish Day. However there is definitely room for improvement,” Irwin said.