Last year, seniors Ryan Rinaldi and Brittany Boston of Future TU were inducted into Temple Student Government as student body president and vice president of services.
On April 18, however, they reversed their roles from a year ago as they watched Empower TU inducted as TSG’s next senior administration at a General Assembly meeting.
Last Monday, while sitting on a bench on Liacouras Walk in front of the Fox School of Business, Rinaldi and Boston reflected on their time at TSG.
“This year has been the greatest year of my life and Temple is at the heart of that,” Rinaldi said. “To graduate from Temple, it’s an honor and I’m lucky to have been able to come here.”
Rinaldi said he hopes his administration is remembered as one that continued to build relationships with the university and students, and served the students’ best interests.
“We were out there, we weren’t just in meetings or in our office,” Boston said. “We were out with the students and we advocated on their behalf at any moment that we could.”
Future TU was the first TSG administration to participate in HootaThon—an organization that raises awareness and funds for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. It raised more than $3,000 for HootaThon this year.
Rinaldi said one his administration’s biggest accomplishments was building relationships with Temple Police, which resulted in the creation of Flight—the university’s new shuttle system that replaced Owl Loop and TUr Door.
“Flight was monumental,” Boston said. “I’m just excited that we have that service. I think it keeps our students safe and a lot of people are excited about it. It came out two months ago and so imagine how efficient it’s going to be in the fall.”
Even though Rinaldi and Boston said they had a great experience at TSG, they faced many unexpected challenges this past year, like the possibility of an on-campus football stadium.
On Feb. 1, TSG held an open forum with President Theobald and Athletic Director Pat Kraft. They also sat down and interviewed Theobald about what a football stadium on campus would do for Temple.
“There’s always going to be struggles when you come into these types of experiences,” Rinaldi said. “This year, the positives have outweighed the negatives ten-fold. And it’s been one of the best experiences that I’ve been fortunate enough to have, and it was worth all of the struggles.”
Rinaldi and Boston also hope Empower TU can continue to improve the relationships they have created with administrators and student organizations.
“The power of TSG lies within the amount of students it engages with, and how well they can leverage their relationships with administrators, with politicians and with students to get things done,” Rinaldi said. “Our main priorities in transitioning this new team was to get them the opportunity to have the same relationships, if not better relationships with all of those different types of groups.”
After Rinaldi and Boston graduate Friday, they both are excited to become Temple alumni and start their careers.
Rinaldi will start working in compliance at Goldman Sachs in New York City in July. Boston plans on having a career in a form of media and hopes to stay in the Philadelphia area.
“I just want students to know that the Future TU administration 2015-16 Temple Student Government never took no for an answer,” Boston said. “We fought for you all at tons of meetings and tons of events … because students are always first. We will continue to serve, unite and build this university and as an [alumna] I hope I can do that as well.”
Thomas Ignudo can be reached at thomas.ignudo@temple.edu or on Twitter @Ignudo5.
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