On April 22, Student Government Association (SGA) held a press conference with The Chimes in order to answer looming questions from the election and appointment process. 

The election process this year did not produce an SGA President and Vice President and also left many Senate spots empty. For the past few months, the current SGA leadership has worked hard to fill these spots, ensuring that next year’s Senate is well-staffed. 

ELECTION NUMBERS 

According to the SGA Constitution and Bylaws, when a presidential candidate is running unopposed, they do not automatically win. In order to win, the candidate must earn approval from 10% of the student population. 

SGA released a post on their Instagram page, revealing the election voting statistics.

The Instagram post stated that the current student population is 3,092 students, with a total of 369 voters. The presidential and vice presidential candidates received 256 votes and 113 votes abstained (8.27%). 

Since the presidential candidate did not reach the 10% threshold, the current SGA leadership moved to find a candidate through the hiring process. 

“For this year’s election, enough people voted, over 10% of the student body voted, but not 10% were voted in approval,” Current SGA President Jacqueline McCauslin stated.

HIRING PROCESS

The hiring process for the SGA president of the 2025-2026 school year was split into two parts. This was inspired by the change in hiring the president of Student Missionary Union (SMU) instead of an election like SGA. 

McCauslin stated that she does not expect this to be a permanent change, but a circumstance that appeared because the elections did not produce a president. 

“I think also it’s just in the nature of a student government and that having elections are good. Having elected based representation is really cool and exciting,” McCauslin said. 

She also explained that this appointment process is being added to the SGA Constitution and Bylaws in case a similar situation arises again.

“The appointment process is now a thing that we’ve tested out and [we] are currently in the process of adding to our bylaws, slash constitution, slash our processes, so if this happens again we want to brainstorm and come up with new processes to prevent that, because that is not the priority of how we want to select our leaders,” McCauslin said.

In the first half of the hiring process, McCauslin, the Vice President for Human Resources and SGA’s advisors met with candidates to discuss their experience, leadership abilities and why they decided to apply for SGA president. After this interview, finalists were chosen and asked personal questions such as their testimonies and their visions for the presidency. 

Leaders from different interest groups around Biola were part of this decision, such as leaders from SMU, SGA advisors and the VP of Human Resources and Finance. 

“The decision was mainly between myself, VP of HR, future VP of Finance, and our advisor with the opinions and thoughts of Mark Muhammad and everyone else that was involved in the process, and we came to a decision that we are really confident in and that was TJ,” said McCauslin

Ultimately, the agreed presidential candidate chosen for the 2025-26 school year was sophomore accounting major Timothy J. Malley. 

“Since then, I’ve been doing training with him at least once a week. At times, we’ve done more, and we’ve been doing that for the last month or so, and we have a lot more training that we still will do,” Said McCauslin.

ABOUT THE PRESIDENT

Malley stated that his desire to serve as SGA president initially came from a conversation with a friend. 

“When I heard from my friend Micah that the position was unfilled during the elections, that it was up to a hiring process, we started a conversation about what each of us would do if we were president,” Malley said. “It was sort of from that moment through the jokes and you know, of course, real thoughts came out, and I thought I could actually do this and because it was there, I applied.”

After looking into the position itself, his desire to give back to the Biola community ultimately led him to want to serve as president. 

“It’s from a love for this campus and this college. It’s given so much to me in terms of friends and opportunities and education, obviously, that I felt like I wanted to give something back,” Malley said.

He explained that his experience in leadership positions is rooted in his high school experiences in sports, campus involvement and academic leadership. 

“I served on the ASB [Associate Student Body] there as president for a year, and I have been placed in leadership positions all throughout my life, on sports, group projects, other teams, just sort of that general leadership experience that I gained from there,” Malley said.

He also explained that his desire to attend Biola stemmed from his older siblings and mom being alumni. Ultimately, he wants to continue fostering a sense of community at Biola and improve student participation. 

PLANS AS SGA PRESIDENT 

Both Malley and McCauslin acknowledged that one of the weakest parts of the election season was the lack of advertising about elections and understanding of SGA. Malley explained that, as president, he desires to connect SGA with the student body. 

The election’s result illustrates that the student body was not connected to the process. Malley intends to bridge this gap and get the students to care about SGA and understand how it helps them. 

“That’s going to be the tough part to pull off, but I think that it can be done, and I think that it can really benefit the campus with stronger community, stronger engagement, better elections,” Malley stated. 

He also explained the importance of Biola’s community and fostering it, as it is a central part of the Biola experience. As SGA president, he wants to foster smaller communities within the larger Biola community. To do this, he plans to work on more events for the student body.   

“Whenever somebody says something good about Biola, it’s the community because it is so strong,” Said Malley. “I feel like it can lose some of its impact, if it’s not translated down to lower levels…So I want to sort of create environments for students to have that opportunity to just reach out, find two or three other people, start building their own little community there as part of the greater whole, I think that can be very beneficial to student body and its health, mentally and relationally.”

He then recounted a personal story in which he was able to foster community when he was a freshman. 

“When I came here as a freshman, I knew one person: my roommate. Nationball gave me the opportunity to meet with other people from my dorm. Now, these same guys are my floor mates. We all hang out. We’re still very good friends. So I think creating more opportunities for things like that to happen through events, though I don’t know how else you would do it, other than events, but creating those opportunities is another high priority of mine, for sure.

He then expressed that most events are usually held in the Spring instead of the Fall. This creates a plethora of opportunities in the spring to have community, but not as many in the Fall. 

“What I see for the events in the spring is primarily that they’re all sort of rear-loaded,” Said Malley. “My idea for a solution would be to sort of spread it out more evenly than to condense it all into the spring.”

VICE PRESIDENT HAS BEEN HIRED

Although the hiring process for SGA cabinet members and senators was extended, the process is nearly complete, and the full results will be announced soon. This includes all the cabinet members and the Senior VP position, which have all been filled. 

The senior VP for the 2025-2026 school year will be junior music therapy major Kyah Kang. 

“​​I think that she brings a certain energy to the cabinet and to the Senate that I can’t. Things that I don’t. Something that I haven’t worked very hard to cultivate is that sort of more passive, compassionate understanding stance. But she does that very well, and you can really see it when you talk with her and just the way she carries herself,” said Malley.

McCauslin shared her excitement about the incoming SGA leadership. 

“We have a lot of younger leaders this year, so that is something that I’m really looking forward to … [which is exciting] for us as an organization, that means some longevity,” said McCauslin. 

With only a few more positions to fill, SGA will soon announce the final Senate for the 2025-2026 school year.