SGA welcomes new president

By Cheyene Miller

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New leadership in the Student Government Association officially began on Wednesday evening as Austin Mullen was sworn in as the student body president.

Mullen took the oath of office alongside his vice president Jenna Hollinden, followed by the swearing in of the new SGA senators.

“I just want to thank you all for everything this year,” said Mullen, who defeated fellow SGA member Dwight Haggard earlier in the semester for the position. “I’m super grateful for the opportunity. I’m very thankful to be in this position.”

Mullen campaigned on the promise to implement two new positions — director of Diversity and Inclusion and director of Finance — which were approved by an SGA vote just minutes after he and Hollinden were sworn into office.

“We believe that we have awesome people in those roles that will do great jobs,” Mullen said.

Mullen said that for the past few weeks he and now former president Jake Ingram have been going around meeting with board of trustees members and university officials like President Eli Capilouto to acclimate him to his new role in the university.

“The day after the election he called me and scheduled weekly meetings up until this week and every week we’d have a different topic, ranging from board of trustees to university administrators, just SGA stuff and student related resources and offices,” Mullen said. “(Ingram) educated me on people I need to talk to in order to get various things accomplished.”

Ingram wished the best for SGA and the man who will be replacing him.

“This has been a blast,” said Ingram, who oversaw a student government that implemented the LiveSafe app accessible to UK students, faculty and staff.

Ingram noted that he will miss his job as student body president but pointed out the position is a huge time commitment. He also praised the work of his administration.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m kind of excited to be done because it is a lot of work,” Ingram said. “I’m very proud of all the work that we did this year. Our success is because of all of your all’s work. It’s the work that you guys put in this year that’s made us so successful.”

Ingram said that he will soon be moving to Orlando, Fl to work as an engineer.

“I’m so excited to get to go out into the world,” said Ingram, who noted that his administration had “almost without exception, improved or expanded almost every program in addition to the creation of new ones.”