Numerous people ask me, “What drives you? Why do you want to be Executive Secretary?” My answer is always the same. I was a teaching assistant for General Business Administration 145. I was afforded the opportunity to work with students, mentor them and be a resource to ease the transition from high school to college. One day I was encouraging students to apply to SGA’s First Year Council to get involved on campus. What made me want to run is the student who came up to me and told me that she did not want to apply because only greeks were chosen. She was a freshman who had barely been on campus one month. This experience drives me. I want every student to have a fair opportunity to make an impact our campus.

My three main platform points are unity, transparency, and sustainability. I believe our SGA has made amazing changes on campus, but I want to continue grow the initiatives that students love and not let them disappear when new elected officials take office. I want all executives, legislatures and judiciaries to have goals for the initiatives that they start. I will make it mandatory to write down the people they contacted and procedures taken to create their initiatives so that we can continue to grow these initiatives when successors take office.

For transparency, I want students to know what initiatives SGA is working on and have the opportunity to volunteer if it is something they are passionate about. I am a current College of Business senator now; however, we do not get our senate packets with legislation until Wednesday night. I want to mandate that senators submit their legislation a week early so that we can use a current program called Say Hey SGA, to interact with students and get direct feedback and opinions from all students. 

I want students to be able to feel comfortable to come talk to me not only in the office, but when I am walking to class and be able to tell me the issues they are facing or initiatives they want to create. I want to be that support system to help students connect to the resources needed to accomplish the positive impact they want to make on campus! The legislations I am most proud of did not come from me myself, but from students who are passionate and wanted to make a change. One of those resolutions was Spread the Word to End the Word. This initiative was created to challenge people to stop the use of the “R” to call people “stupid” or “dumb.” I want every single student to be able to come to SGA and get our support and help with the initiatives they are passionate about.

Lastly, I want to improve unity on campus. There is an apparent divide on campus. This should not be existent because we are all students who have come to get a higher education, get a job, but also have fun during their time at the Capstone. Our current executive vice president, Polly Ricketts, has started an amazing event called the Yellow Hammer concert. I want to grow this program and start to partner with large corporations to relieve the financial burden on our university to produce large projects like this.

I do not want to be the elected official that you only see when it is campaign season, I want students to know who I am and know that I am here to help them make their ideas become reality and their opinions be heard. Your Opinions > politics! I am an independent, so I only have to answer to students and I hope you support me and Love Long and Vote Kelsi Long on March 1!

Kelsi Long is running for executive secretary.