Indiana State University Newsroom

Two Indiana State University students were inaugurated earlier this month as president and vice president of Student Government Association's 52nd administration.

Juniors, Olivia Finley, a political science major from Terre Haute, and Dan Dooley, a finance major from Clermont, Ind. will serve as the 2014-2015 president and vice president.

Finley is the first female SGA president since 2003 when Indianapolis student Megan McManama served. She is also the fifth SGA president in a row to reside from Terre Haute. Both Finley and Dooley were actively serving SGA before they were elected.

"We will focus on three key points," Finley said.

Their first priority is student involvement which pertains to getting students engaged in social organization and activities on campus. The administration is currently working on multiple strategic initiatives revolving around student engagement.

"A lot of these activities will be focused on weekend planning, which will aid in our initiative to help students on campus during time off," Dooley said. "Offering the campus more activities and events on the weekends will make an incentive to stick around."

Another key point is student retention.

"Retention is a really big deal to us because we want to make sure Sycamores stay Sycamores," Dooley said.

Finley said the final point of focus will be building faculty-student relations to help students feel more secure at Indiana State.

"The start of the term has been amazing," Dooley said. "Olivia and I have been more than busy trying to coordinate all of the activities we plan to hold for students in the upcoming semester."

"I have a lot of respect for Olivia and Dan, and an appreciation for the work they've done and direction they've set for SGA and their fellow students," said Brooks Moore, associate dean of students.

Finley and Dooley are looking to get students engaged with a unique concept.

"What we want to do, a few times a month, is take the SGA executive branch down to the Commons," Dooley said. "Students are going to be encouraged to talk to us. Hopefully they'll be more open to approaching us if we aren't cooped up in an office."

The new SGA leaders said they feel prepared to take on the task of running an administration, but a lot of work still has to be done and the administration wants students, faculty and staff to stay tuned for future announcements.

"Without giving anything away quite yet, the office is ecstatic for a few of the major ideas we have planned around the fall semester... we hope to provide more information when plans are set," Dooley said.

SGA will be participating in Indiana State's orientation evening events at the Student Recreation Center's social nights to join other campus organization in the pursuit to recruit students and "getting new freshman students matched up with clubs."

"Olivia, I and other outstanding members from the executive office and other SGA branches will be there every night to greet and meet new Sycamores," Dooley said.

Though Finley and Dooley have just begun their term, they credit their success to the Indiana State community.

"People believe in us, so we are going to do our best," Finley said. "It really inspired me."

Writer: Dustyn Fatheree, media relations assistant, Office of Communications and Marketing, Indiana State University, 812-237-3773 or isu-communications@mail.indstate.edu