By Jon Munshaw
Towson University junior Antonio Colon Jr. knew he was fighting an uphill battle in his campaign for president of the Student Government Association.
Colon, who finished last in the election that saw the ticket T-moji sweep every major position in the SGA, used social media and face-to-face campaigning in his attempt to gain ground on his opponents.
Colon originally was part of a two-person ticket called Towson Voice. However, his vice presidential candidate, Kevin Zimmerman, was ruled ineligible by the SGA election committee for failing to show up to a mandatory meeting.
Despite the loss of Zimmerman, Colon said he still ran the best campaign he could.
“It puts me at a great disadvantage. It’s a lot less people that I can reach,” he said in an interview before the election.
After the election, TU Evolution president Mike Ukoha, who ended up finishing second in the race, said Colon ran a solid campaign despite the disadvantages he faced.
Ukoha said he thought the race was overall respectful.
“The votes, the platforms, getting to talk to all the students just showed how passionate everyone is,” he said. “I respect everyone who ran. I definitely think they have plenty of great ideas and be able to do plenty of great things.”
Colon ran under the Towson Voice ticket. He chose to stick with the name because it supports his biggest initiative, which is to create a website called Towson Voice.
Students could access this page via their login and post any concerns that they have regarding campus.
“I think [the SGA] sees a lot of trends and things that students would like to see, and I think the school should listen to these,” he said.
This is not Colon’s first experience with SGA.
In the fall 2011 semester, he served as a senator. However, he had to end his term early to work a full-time schedule.
Colon is paying for his college education on his own, and he did not feel he could devote enough time to SGA at that time.
Since then, Colon has been able to work out a different payment plan for his student loans that would allow him to spend the necessary as SGA president.
However, he is still a commuter, which Colon said gives him a new perspective that he believes SGA is currently lacking.
“I can understand, coming from the inside looking outward, that me being from the outside now, I know what the SGA is like,” he said. “But I have the perspective of students who aren’t constantly in-touch with SGA. The problem with the same people sticking within something is they can become very like-minded in their ideals and it doesn’t open up very many other avenues.”
As a commuter, Colon has served on the executive board of the Commuter Student Organization as vice president.
Colon said he would like to give new opportunities for commuters, who he said can often become disconnected from the university.
To remedy this, Colon wants to create a commuter student lounge in the University Union that would encourage commuters to spend more time on campus and become more acquainted with the university.
When he first started coming to Towson after transferring out of community college, Colon said it was difficult for him to become fully immersed in campus.
“I didn’t realize how hard it would be to not live on campus,” he said. “I wanted to make a difference, but I didn’t have the opportunity to give as much time as others. I felt disconnected and kind of sad, because I wanted to be involved at Towson.”
Now that he has a better feel for campus, Colon said his last initiative would have been to open the SGA up to more student concerns. He said he knows students often have ideas of how to improve campus, but rarely share them.
“One of the biggest things is I’d like to do a lot more personal meetings for the public, where people can approach us and tell us about things that they have concerns about,” he said.
Colon said it was harder for him to develop a longer list of initiatives because he ran by himself.
“It is certainly worth me trying,” he said before the election. “At least I can’t say that I didn’t try. I’m going to give it my all.”
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