Major: Pre Business (Plans for Marketing, Economics and Finance)
College: LSBE
Representatives must sit on at least one committee. How will you work with your fellow student representatives and committee members to solve problems, raise awareness, or make changes at UMD?
I will be a voice, someone who is not afraid to speak their mind. In most discussions, I will put a student forward approach, but also one of continuation and legacy. My goal is to develop events and activities that allow the students to express themselves and open up. When people are more open, they are more understanding, and an understanding of different views will lead to a better campus. The push for collaboration will be my biggest view, as everyone has different ideas, and recognizing that not all can be included is important. Instead of working off others’ ideas may be the way to push forth and continue to help the group within discussion.
Describe any leadership experience you have.
I have experience starting clubs and coaching things such as speech and DECA, I was a 3-sport athlete and captain of bot my cross-country team and track team. I was a captain of a competitive math team. I was a student government secretary, and I was a leader in the local volunteer group. Leadership is funny however; I have all these fancy titles but what did I do to deserve them? Well, I took action I was a founder of many different things such as competitive speech and debate, where I managed to get all costs cut. I led community service projects for DECA where we made food baskets for the local food bank. In student government I often went against the grain choosing school image over new things. In Math league I helped increase membership by 200%. In my mind well yes, I have a lot of fancy titles over the years it is the action that should truly speak. I could list all 10 or 12 things that I was involved in but it is useless without mentioning impact. That is the same impact I would like to make on student life.
Describe the relationship between Student Government Association and the student body. Explain how you as a leader and a member of this collaborative organization might strengthen and/or maintain this relationship.
The goal of Student Government is to connect student voice with action. The way I would strengthen connection would be through my personal involvement in clubs and my hope of success for every student. When you bring on someone with many different viewpoints, they tend to have a more unbiased opinion making them a better listener and collaborator. With my connections that I have created in every college around campus in these first few weeks and my past of activities from hockey to competitive math or honor choirs I have the ability to see those points of view. Finally, my goal will always be action, no matter who or what we are discussing I oftentimes would like to see some sort of action taken to better student lives.
Diversity of opinion is one of Student Government Association’s most important characteristics. In many cases, you will have individuals expressing opinions that are different from your own. How might this idea be beneficial when making critical decisions for the organization and the student body? How might you handle a situation like this as a representative?
Different viewpoints are what run our world. My goal within debate is always going to be to look for a compromise. However, sometimes that is not reasonably possible in those cases, I would look at what the student body wants. Sometimes in debate, people get really into logic and words and can often misconstrue what students really want. The way I have proposed in past discussions is to ask one final question at the start of the debate, one that can encompass the topic in a few words. This question would be student-centric and have the goal of change. After discussion you reask the question to both see what clarity could be added and to see if the discussion came to a reasonable solution.
What is a song that you think describes you?
Breakdown - Jack Johnson