Jacob Pike serves San Antonio College as the secretary of the Student Government Association (SGA). Pike is a chemistry major in his final semester and is transferring to UTSA in the fall. He will attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s research for undergraduate students (REU) program this summer, and he hopes to do organic-chemistry research. Pike has lived in the San Antonio area for most of his life and graduated from Johnson High School. He has served on the SGA since fall 2023. SAC Student News interviewed Pike Thursday to shed light on the SGA’s campus presence.
SSN: What are some of your responsibilities as the SGA secretary?
JP: I’m responsible for working with our president, Desteny Espinoza to make all the agendas, and I’m also responsible for taking and writing the meeting minutes and uploading them to our Alamo experience. I’m pretty good at being very organized, and I thought I would fit well in this role.
SSN: How do you specifically serve the student body at SAC?
JP: One thing I try to do is support the initiatives of my fellow SGA officers. One of SGA’s previous initiatives that was fulfilled was our suggestion stations. We have about 10 around campus in Chance, Moody and the Loftin Student Center. I go and check the suggestion stations and read the suggestions or problems that students may have at our meetings.
SSN: What do you want students to know about the SGA?
JP: Whatever issues they raise, we will do our best to take the time to listen to them, act on them or try to fix their problems. We had certain students with various disabilities bring up concerns of having trouble getting to class. So something we did last semester was fixing ramps around certain buildings or elevators that were broken down, and, obviously, we’re not going out there and fixing them ourselves, but we’re taking student concerns and we’re bringing it to our administration, who in turn take it before the college [to the] executive level.
SSN: How has serving on the SGA benefited you?
JP: It’s a leadership experience. It’s been nice to take on an officer role in an organization here at SAC, and in this role I’m surrounded by other leaders and get to learn from them. We have a really amazing group this year. We all get along well and just click. So yeah, learning from them is great.
SSN: Tell me about the associate officer program.
JP: The associate officers shadow the executive officers, attend SGA meetings, and also help us out with setting up for different events. We do have our elections for executive positions coming up in March. When we hold elections, anyone can apply for any of the five executive positions. And as a junior officer, you’ve already had the shadow experience. So you know a lot more about what the position is actually like.
SSN: How does applying for an executive position and SGA elections work?
JP: There is an initial application and once you apply, we will put your name on our ballot. It’s usually a Google form where you can actually vote and then we make that link publicly available. We put it on our Alamo Experience. We post fliers up around campus saying, ‘Vote, vote, vote.’ And then once you open it, it’s the list of the names of people who applied for each position.
SSN: What is some advice you would give someone who is looking to run for an SGA position in April?
JP: It’s important to get out of your shell a little bit and be social. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Do not be afraid to take initiative, because most of our members that join usually have had issues of their own as students. And so they’re like, I need to take matters into my own hands. I’m going to try to join SGA to mend this. Don’t be afraid once you join to use your position to work on some issues that mean something to you.
