Colin Humphries and Dale Leone, the president and vice president of the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Student Government Association (SGA), discussed their initiatives to address student needs and hopes for the 2024-2025 school year.

Humphries, a senior studying political science and history, is a Residential Assistant (RA) in freshman dorm Pierpont Hall, which has helped him gain a unique perspective from the student body. As an RA, he said, “I also get to hear a lot of feedback from the freshman students that I have, and kind of hear what their concerns are, what they’re going through and I think that allows me to more effectively lead.”

His involvement with SGA began his freshman year when he ran for class senator. He had several accomplishments, including expanding “grab n’ go” hours to include dinner and expanding Covid testing pickup and drop-off sites during the pandemic. Humphries also served as the chair of both the Undergraduate Services Committee and the Administrative Affairs Committee.

His ambitions for presidency began before college. “I ran for class president three times in high school. Ended up losing all three of my elections, which was rough, but obviously everything ended up working out in the long run for me.”

Leone, a senior studying history, enjoys being involved on campus by participating in intramural sports, such as flag football. Leone also attends a variety club meetings of his friends to connect with student organizations on campus.

For Leone, his SGA involvement began with a hunt for a job. Through this search, he landed his role as a conduct advisor. “Not to be kind of corny, but it kind of really was in the sense that being able to kind of like witness, kind of like cases firsthand, that students have stuff like that, it really allowed me to, like see student conduct problems firsthand,” he said.

He was eventually compelled to get more involved, prompting his decision to run for vice president with Humphries.

Humphries and Leone are working to create a permanent food pantry, have started the swipe donation and iclicker donation program, and have begun other campus-wide initiatives during the first semester as president and vice president.

Their day-to-day looks different, but both said they work as a communicator between students and the UMass administration.

“[The job] involves me kind of collaborating with Colin in terms of when we have an issue going on in cabinet,” Leone said. “That can look like me calling with Colin to an administration meeting and kind of saying like, ‘Oh, here’s this other perspective that might not been considered.’”

Humphries oversees and leads a cabinet of 12 people. He hopes to fix the internal structure of the SGA and ensure that all funding goes to the right places. In addition, he has worked to bring back the Food Recovery Network, which gives students food from 5-6 p.m. on Wednesdays in the Newman Center.

“There was just a big announcement that, as a result of our efforts, a permanent Food Pantry will be opening on campus in fall of 2025,” Humphries said. “We also got the swipe donation program up and running, and next week, we’re going to be working on textbooks and course material reduction advocacy. So being president really allows me to kind of be that middleman between the students and the administrators.”

Leone works alongside Humphries organizing policies. Leone said he takes “the concerns and the needs of the students, and I advocate for them to the UMass administration, and I advocate for policies that will help to … benefit the student body”.

One of their goals for this year is to make UMass and other state colleges cost-free. According to Leone, they “really want to lobby the state to get more funding for state colleges like UMass.”

Both leaders are eager to make changes and put the needs of the students first. “We’re here to serve students,” Humphries said. “So we want to do everything in our power to be approachable to students, and we want to try to foster an environment where everyone feels comfortable approaching us, and trying to collaborate with us to make change, that helps everybody.”

Pratika Dhungel can be reached at [email protected]. Ambika Joshi can be reached at [email protected].