CGA now has three new faces who have joined their executive board for the 24′-25′ academic school year. These students share the goal of improving CGA’s impact on the student body.
Meet Chaz:
Chaz Kaszuba is a freshman international business major and, most recently, the new student representative for CGA.
He got his start with CGA just three days into his stay on campus, where he met a representative of CGA at the fall activities fair, whom he credits for inspiring him to get involved. He sold on their pitch of searching for leaders among the student population.
Prior to this, Chaz believed he had garnered leadership skills through his own bakery business as well as his time serving as a representative for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society.
“Naturally, I gravitated towards this,” Kaszuba said.
Kaszuba first got his start as a senate representative before entering his name on the ballot for freshman class president. Two weeks later, he finds himself giving a speech to the entirety of the CGA senate for a chance to be elected to the position of student representative.
A role that entails stating up-to-date with offices such as community activities. He would also be attending several meetings throughout the day, such as a meeting of class officers, where discussions surround extending student out reach. Other meetings he attends also include senate meetings, which he would be attending that afternoon.
That same day, he would also have a fundraising committee meeting. Kaszuba hopes to continue to make strides in the fundraising committee he serves on, which raises money for The Big Event. Some of his workload includes reaching out to donors, especially those who have donated in the past.
“The fundraising committee works solely to cut out those overhead costs,” Kaszuba stated. However, his goals do not stop there, stating, “In the future, I see myself in one of the core four positions.”
“CGA isn’t just this corporate setting,” he stated. Elaborating, he said, “CGA feels like a new family to me. I feel like I have grown with this group of people.”
Meet Gracey-Mae:
Gracey-Mae Baker is a sophomore media and journalism major with a minor in communications who got her start in CGA through her friend Luz, who currently sits on the CGA executive board as the executive assistant.
Baker now currently sits on the executive board as their new public relations officer after the former Mae Adams was appointed to fill the vacant vice president position, where she beat out five other candidates through a series of interviews to earn the role.
“When they said the position was open, I was really interested because I kind of try to weasel my way into the media aspects of every club I’m in,” Baker said.
Prior to this, Baker had gotten a job serving as an RA in Elwell Hall. A job she says helped prepare her for the newfound leadership that comes with his role.
“That position kind of put me in a spot where I had to be a leader and role model,” she said.
Going further, she stated, “I was like, I think I can do this because I had these experiences but I also think that me generally as a person, I’m pretty open to pretty much anything.”
Baker’s typical day working in CGA can consist of managing the organization’s social media, which she plans to expand to help reach more of the student body. She also wishes to include more video production elements in their media, with plans to create videos introducing members of CGA to the public.
However, a more recent addition to her workload has been the revival of a news column for The Voice, which she writes.
She also revealed an initiative CGA is making to bring back “What Do You Want Wednesdays,” an event in which members of CGA would sit at a table on campus and gather feedback from students.
Meet Jeriah:
Jeriah Wirth is a twenty-three-year-old undeclared freshman who currently sits on CGA’s executive board as their new student representative.
Before coming to Bloomsburg, Wirth had been working in the private sector doing real estate consulting. However, the time came, and he were looking to add a degree to their resume. Instead of going to the college of his hometown, Penn State, he instead chose Bloomsburg for the quiet and small nature of the campus.
Wirth would get involved in CGA through the fall activities fair. He joined with a simple goal in mind.
“Ultimately, I wanted to make sure my time here wasn’t all for not and that I had maybe made changes to policy or different initiatives or just anything that was meaningful for the four years I’ll be here,” said Wirth.
Wirth like Kaszuba, started off as a senate representative, and together to two would campaign for a position to the executive board, where he was elected to the second student representative position.
“In a regular day are pretty sporadic throughout the week,” Wirth said, describing his workload with CGA, which consists of executive board meetings.
It is during senate meetings that students and staff can raise concerns to the board, in which they are then offloaded to Wirth and his counterpart Kaszuba.
One such concern he had described involved an event at the Unimart that concerned a firearm.
As Wirth described, “Things like that we follow up on, so we talk to the BUPD or anything else that has to do with that.”
Now that Wirth sits on the executive board, he hopes to improve communication between the university and commuter students, wishing to keep them better informed about events happening on campus or policies they need to follow.
“As myself, I am a black man, so I would like to ensure that there’s a lot of policy in place or update policy that we may have to make sure that we’re making sure that things are diverse and inclusive so that kids don’t feel like they’re being left out, especially when it comes to leadership.”
