In case you missed the first part of our interview with candidates Tom Madsen and Blake Findley, you can click here and catch up! Below, we finish up our interview with some questions for Blake
Q: Why run for vice president? What makes you the most qualified candidate for the position?
Blake: All of the other vice presidential candidates are really qualified, but I've been on NISG almost as long as KaLeigh. I think I was on NISG a couple months after she was, but I wasn't senator, I was involved in the Student Affairs Committee. Since then, I've been really active. I was the vice chair of the Student Affairs Committee last year, which was my first year as a senator, and this year I'm Deputy Speaker of Senate, the chair of the Governmental and Legislative Affairs committee and the chair of the Campus Relations committee. That experience, in conjunction with my experience as a writer for the Northern Iowan, will probably be the experience I fall back on most as vice president. For example, I have really good relationships with a lot of the faculty members. It'll be interesting, because most of them don't know my opinion, because I have to be subjective when I write about it. But I think that'll be beneficial in presenting about student concerns, because I already have that relationship with them. And while I will obviously put the needs of students above those relationships, I can use those relationships to better the quality of student life and academics.
Q: You're involved in a number of different organizations and campus activities. How do you expect to balance all that with your responsibilities as vice president?
Blake: One of the things that I will have to do, but I will be most sad about doing, is resigning from the Northern Iowan, if elected. Because, one, your vice president shouldn't be writing the news and two, that will be a huge time commitment that I will not have next year. I will also probably cut back on my other random involvements. The things that I plan to keep next year, if elected, would be my position as co-chair of Leadership Development for the Student Involvement Center, because I'm really passionate for leadership development and how it can benefit students. And I am a part of Circle of Support and Accountability, which rehabilitates prisoners and I am currently working with someone who was just released from prison, and I will be helping him to read and write, so that is not something that I can just drop. I'm also currently taking 20 credit hours and next year I'll be taking 12, if elected, for my own sanity and the benefits of students. I've been incredibly busy since my freshman year just because, while being actively involved, I've had to work so I can pay off school. My family is not one that can pay anything for me, so I've had to be completely self-sufficient. So I've developed really good time management skills and figured out the best ways for me to be productive. I am also extremely dedicated to UNI and would do anything to make it a better place, so if I feel that I'm not doing the best that I can in the job because I'm too busy, I will cut something back.
Q: Your platform talks about increasing the availability of inclusivity workshops. Can you talk about what inclusivity workshops are?
Blake: Most of my experience for this will fall back on my time at LeaderShape, which is an intensive leadership conference. I went to this the summer after my freshman year, and it was a six-day long camp where you were in leadership from about 8 a.m. to 8 o'clock at night. And that was the first place where I heard the word inclusivity. So there are different ways that I want to implement these, and one is through Unity Week, which happened last year but it wasn't put on by anything, so it didn't have a lot of support. And the idea behind that was actually really great, it was that we don't want one theme to sponsor it because that would take away from the inclusivity part, so that would be why an organization didn't put it on. I do think that, since NISG is the representative of all student orgs and all students, it would be NISG's place to put that on. Ideas for workshops would be like simulations. There was a simulation we did at LeaderShape that was called Star Power, which falls back on socioeconomic status and how people of higher status automatically make the rules without thinking of people of lower statuses. It's really hard for people to think about the opposite perspective without being in a position where they're in the minority. I could talk for a long time about it, but we'll just leave it at that for now.
Q: You are the chair of Campus Relations committee. Can you talk a little bit about what that committee does and what it has produced or accomplished under your leadership?
Blake: That committee is a brand new committee and it was combined from the Student Affairs and Public Relations committees. So it's been a little difficult balancing the two, because I come from a student affairs perspective and I'm really big about student affairs. Sometimes it's hard to implement the publicity, but things that we have the done this semester for publicity have been giving out hot chocolate during finals week and then we created a presentation to give to student organizations, updating them on what NISG is and how you can get involved. And then also, what things UNI is facing. For example, the tuition set aside, the tuition freeze, and how that will impact students. Also, we tailor it to each student organization. In terms of the student affairs aspect, we've talked about Dead Days. That was presented to faculty senate and turned down this year, but we're looking at that and doing a lot of research to help support our stance that this is better for students. So the point of that committee is to get NISG out to students and also represent them on campus. So there have been times where we may not have a resolution, but I would bring up something that a student brought to me and KaLeigh would call or Tom would bring up something and I would call someone and get it addressed without a formal resolution. So a lot of what we do is more in the background, but it is our job to represent students to the university and, at the same time, showing students what NISG does.
Q: Anything else you want to say before we finish up?
Tom: We look forward to the race, we're having a good time meeting students and talking to students. We really enjoy all the other tickets and we really respect them. We're all very good friends, so it has been interesting. We are looking forward to students voting and, no matter who they vote for, we want them to be informed and go out and use their right to vote for leader.
Blake: I would also like to thank students and our campaign team for helping us. The fact that students will listen to me talk about things that they might not know about and may not really care about is really important and I'm really touched by how everyone has been willing to listen. Even someone in a KaLeigh and Alicia t-shirt will stop and ask how our campaign is doing or even KaLeigh and Alicia themselves or David and Katie will talk and vent to each other about getting four hours of sleep last night. So I'd really like to thank the other candidates and the whole student body for keeping us positive. I've wanted to do this since I was freshman and, now that I'm finally here, I've realized how much I've done has depended on other students and I wouldn't have been able to do it by myself.
Tom: Students give us the opportunity to do this and the whole reason why we run, why UNI is great and why we do everything is for students. Students make our experience great and we want to give back.
So there you have it, in the words of Tom and Blake! Check back tomorrow for our interview with David! Katie, unfortunately, has returned home to deal with the recent passing of her father, so please respect her privacy but also keep her and her family in your thoughts during this difficult time.
No comments:
Post a Comment