Club and Greek Outreach
I want to publicize and prioritize Greek philanthropy events and Greek accomplishments. Whether it’s campus culture, or a lack of support, Greeks often cater their philanthropy events towards other Greeks. Sororities and fraternities work extremely hard on this campus to raise money and awareness for their respective philanthropies. For some reason, the rest of the campus is blind to these efforts. As a brand new member of Greek life, I’ve noticed.
If I’m on the ballot for secretary, I hope to campaign on working with Greek e-boards to stay up to date on the logistics of philanthropy Greek-sponsored events, then publish these in a regular email to the entire undergraduate student body
The same holds for professional Greek organizations. Professional Greeks often have more professionally-tailored events that can benefit a lot of students who hope to enter those specific fields. Professional Greeks make up another huge part of the AU community, and are often overlooked, much like social Greeks are. If I’m on the ballot, I hope to campaign to help professional Greeks in publicizing their events to the greater AU community
As a former member of a small club, we were not given priority, for funding or for publicity. As a result, our club no longer exists. We held events that nobody knew about, and worked hard to publish a magazine once a semester, that nobody could read because our base of supporters was so small. I don’t want to see other clubs go down the same path.
I hope to work with club members and club e-boards to get communicate with AUCC and Media Board, as well as the SG Comptroller, to get them the funds that many clubs desperately need in order to function. I will also work with club communications teams to build their support base and email lists. From there, SG and club e-boards can collaborate to get the word out about events, meetings, and other club work through SG channels—email, social media, and our website, as well as the same channels through clubs.
I also want to do the same for club sports teams. Club sport athletes practice and play hard, but have little to no funding, and low turnout at games. I hope to change this by creating a club sports calendar so sports fans and other athletes have all the information they need in one place if they want to attend games and support club teams. I will also work to raise awareness about the lack of funding that club teams receive through town halls, and reports to campus administration.
I hope to continue this year’s Leadership Breakfasts, but expand them immensely. Leadership Breakfasts are a good way for all the leaders on campus—from Greeks and clubs, to club sports and Media Board—to discuss what they’re each doing, and how to help each other. From these, I hope to better understand the problems that are facing social and professional fraternities and sororities, as well as clubs and club sports.
Advocacy Through Communication
The Secretary acts as Student Government’s “chief communicator”. Secretaries in the past have opted to communicate about when KPU events are, and what the President has been up to. I want to communicate directly to students about things we need in order to be successful at AU.
I hope to hold roundtables and forums specifically about board meetings, how the tuition process works, applying for financial aid, how to fill out the FAFSA, how to go through an appeal, the new gen ed program and how it affects you, the YourCare initiative about mental health resources, and so on. These forums and roundtables will be about anything that students should have a voice in on campus.
There are two reasons for that. One is so that students feel sufficiently prepared to have those conversations. They have all the information they need, all sides of the debate in order to come to an educated conclusion, or feel like they’re adequately prepared to go about their life as AU students
The second is to gauge student response on these issues. I plan to amplify student voice to faculty and administrators this year, and the way to do that is to always be connected to how students feel about things around campus, so Student Government can respond accordingly. These responses can be anything from increased advocacy work and press releases, to grassroots responses like letter-writing campaigns to the board, and protests.
Student Government is elected by you, to work for you. I want students to be involved in every step of the discussion about things that will affect us.
Improving Relations with Student Media
SG usually just puts out a press release, or has an article in the Eagle if they want to make an announcement. This is due to a slow breakdown of communication between Student Government and Student Media. If I’m on the ballot, I hope to campaign on restoring and vastly improving this relationship
If I’m on the ballot, I hope to campaign on regularly meeting with e-boards from not only The Eagle, but also every other student media outlet on this campus, many of which have been virtually ignored by SG this year. I want to not only utilize these forms of student media, but also help to lift them up, and grow their base and readership.
Building Relationships with Local Media and Neighboring Schools
I hope to reach out to Student Governments at other schools in the DMV in order to have open lines of communication between us. This will be necessary whe we all have to join together to push for advocacy projects, or reform in the way schools in the area operate.
Along that same line, I hope to build relationships with the local media in the area to put AU on the map, and advertise AU student accomplishments.
Increased Transparency
Students should know what they’re elected SG executives are doing, and how their student activity fee is being spent
I hope to bring back monthly “Good Morning American” videos from the Kelly administration, to briefly keep AU students updated on what all branches of SG have been working on over the past month
I also plan to put a monthly column or op-ed in student media to go into more detail about what SG is doing. That way, students are fully equipped with all the information on what we’ve been doing, and can use that to tell us how to do better.
Promoting Inclusion
Student Government claims to represent the collective interests of every undergraduate student at AU, but we cannot do that, if we are not working as hard as we can to include EVERY AU student. If I'm elected, I will work with ASAC, students with disabilities, and ISSS to ensure that all AUSG events, materials, and resources are accessible to anyone and everyone who needs them.