On Feb. 27, the results of the 2025/26 Student Government President and Vice President election were announced at The Boardwalk in North Lake Village.
SG President-Elect Gianna Ihuoma, a junior double majoring in business management and political science, and SG Vice President-Elect Giovanna DeMarco, a freshman legal studies major, won the election.
They begin their terms on April 1.
Ihuoma and DeMarco started as senators during the 2024/25 school year. However, about three weeks into the position, Ihuoma was elected as the Special Conference and Travel Chair. In that position, she worked with different registered student organizations and allocated their funding.
Ihuoma’s goal with this position is to make a change.
“From the second I became a senator, I started thinking, ‘Oh, this is something that I potentially want to do,’” Ihuoma said. “Then, as we got closer to election season, I realized that this is an option for me. I want to be that voice for students who don’t have one.”
Ihuona felt that DeMarco’s work ethic as a senator would make her a good vice president. Ihuona reached out to Demarco and pitched the idea of being running mates, not knowing if DeMarco would be interested.
“We met for the next following days after that, kind of coming up with a plan of what we wanted to do, what we wanted to change and how we wanted to make it happen. We came to that as a collective party,” Ihuoma said.
The two ran on three pillars: safety, involvement and integration.
“We are an all female ticket, so safety is super important to the both of us. Making sure that everyone here feels like they are safe is something we take very seriously,” Ihuoma said.
Their goals include increasing lighting and the number of security cameras on campus.
Ihuona and Demarco were both active in non-SG groups. They understand, though, that not every student is. They said more resources will be put into place to inform students about the organizations that can join and how to do so.
“We feel that there is an involvement crisis here on campus,” Ihuoma said. “A lot of people aren’t involved, maybe just because they don’t know what there is here.”
Their third pillar, involvement, was decided after listening to other senators’ experiences when starting at FGCU. DeMarco, as a freshman, and other transfer student senators felt lost once they got to campus, asking themselves “What now?”
Ihuoma and DeMarco want to start educational and mentoring programs for freshman and transfer students.
“So that they [freshman and transfer students] feel at home from the second they get here,” Ihuoma said.
While campaigning, the two utilized Instagram to their advantage to get their message to FGCU students. Now that they’re elected, they plan to keep their account, @ihuonademarco2526, running to give regular SG updates.
“I really studied a lot of the old campaign accounts when starting mine and something that I noticed throughout all of them is that as soon as the announcement for the next president was made, there was never a post again,” Ihuona said. “All of my friends are not in student government. If I wasn’t, they would not know who to contact as far as getting things done that they would like to see changed.”
DeMarco feels social media and tabling on campus was the most important part of their campaign.
“It got our students to see who they were voting for and why,” DeMarco said.
The two met privately with FGCU President Aysegul Timur in preparation for the candidate debate held on Feb. 25. They discussed FGCU’s strategic plan and what they wanted to accomplish if elected, such as how to fix the lack of housing on campus.
“She [Timur] said that important conversations were being had about housing and how to fix that,” Ihouma said. “She recognizes that there is a problem. A lot of people aren’t getting housing and don’t know what to do.”
Ihuoma was not expecting to win on Feb. 27. She shared the moment with her friends and campaign manager, Justin Conklin, a previous candidate in the 24/25 SG presidential election.
“To share that moment with him was really important because it’s like a win for all of us,” DeMarco said.
