*While this story was reported independently of any affiliated individuals, it should be noted that two of the newly elected members of the Student Government Association (Lucas Brown & Alivia Woolard) currently hold positions at The Chimes.
On Wednesday April 1st, SGA announced the results of this year’s elections, naming Jackson Hibbard as the future Student Body President and Lucas Brown as future Vice President. Hibbard and Brown ran uncontested and, unlike last year’s failed presidential election, they received well over the threshold of votes needed to be elected. Some of their stated goals for next year include better use of their contingency funds to support student-led initiatives and increasing accessibility to university administration.
Additionally, SGA announced the following seven elected senators at large:
- Zoe Batrez
- Heather Calhoun
- Howard Nichols
- Gustavo Serrato
- Jonathan Troutner
- Julianne Wong
- Alivia Woolard
Both Hibbard and Brown have served as senators during this 2025-2026 academic year, and expect to draw on that experience as they enter their new roles. Hibbard noted that the job description of a senator leaves a lot of room for customization – something they hope to help the new faces navigate next Fall.
“We’ll have the advantage of teaching them and guiding them through this learning curve,” said Hibbard. “But I think we’ll be able to sympathize with what they’re going through because of our experience in SGA.”
The next year will also bring some changes to the structure of the senate. SGA passed an amendment to their constitution removing senators’ affiliation to the dorm halls in favor of at-large positions and reducing the number of senators from eleven representatives to seven.
This reduction is expected to free up more of SGA’s budget for student-facing resolutions, instead of going to payroll. Brown also hopes that this change will help facilitate more direct and effective relationships between the senators and their contingency. His time as a senator this year helped illuminate ways that the current model needs improvement.
“We also think there’s a lot more that we could be doing for students, and one of the problems we noticed is that a lot of the senators didn’t really know how to effectively do their jobs,” said Brown. “Like, they were just put into the role and then forced to kind of invent things to do to fill their hours. And it wasn’t the most productive.”
For Hibbard, his time as a senator has impressed on him a passion for the relational work involved in leadership in student government. It was this work of interacting with students and administration and the mediation work involved in the role that drew Hibbard to run for student body president.
“I find conversation one of the most fun parts about my job as a senator,” said Hibbard. “Just having conversations with people who have problems and giving thought to solve these problems, or giving them, like, a sense of hope and care. It’s always been a really cool part of my job.”
Besides his commitment to the relational demands and opportunities of his role, Hibbard is also looking to continue to connect students with Biola’s administration and improve accessibility to people in leadership at the university.
“There have been situations this year that have shown the need for good student-to-admin communication,” said Hibbard. “And there’s places to help those people bridge the gap between admin and students in communication.”
Brown pointed to the Dwelling Forum hosted by SGA earlier this spring as a proof of concept for how they can act as a bridge between students and top ranking members of the administration. He sees this accessibility as something that could extend to other departments around Biola including the chapel team, Housing and Residence Life and even Bon Appetit.
“We want to make the departments on campus that people want to complain about the most more open and accessible,” Brown said. “So people understand what’s going on more, and they’ll be less likely to just make them the scapegoat for all their problems.”
Other stated goals included smarter allocation of their contingency funds to promote student-led initiatives and undertake campus improvement . With a smaller payroll, SGA will have more funds at their disposal to use towards these proposals.
Hibbard also mentioned a potential project to improve the connection between students and local church bodies around Biola. He would love to see students have an easier time connecting with local churches, including more options for those without their own cars to find rides to church on Sundays.
“I think everybody wants everybody else on campus to get to church every Sunday, and for that process to be really easy and accessible,” Hibbard said. “A website could be a really useful resource for students and even for signing up for rides and things like that.”
“One of our ideas we’re working on is creating a church directory,” Brown said. “We want to start reaching out to churches, and creating a sort of a pipeline for students to be very easily connected to a local church as soon as they get to Biola.”
Both Hibbard and Brown will begin to work in their new roles in the Fall of 2026. In the meantime they will have their current responsibilities as senator to carry through to the end of the spring semester.
