Trey Byars, who formerly served as current Student Body President Jonathan Kaufman’s chief of staff, believes he has learned a lot about what the role of student body president means as well as how he can be effective in that role.
“I’ve learned from some of his mistakes and some of the things he’s done well in addition to that,” Byars said, “so one thing that I've really learned is that there's a lot of problems on this campus that we can fix, but we can't necessarily fix all the big problems; we need to fix some of the smaller ones."
The smaller problems that Byars is looking at include
student parking tickets, communication with the board of trustees and social
media engagement to help get students involved.
Byars hopes to incorporate a "work it off" program based on methods other universities have used where students will have the opportunity to do two hours of community service in order to get their ticket expunged.
“It’s a way to give back to the community, but it’s also a way to save students money. The job of any government is to make life easier for the people they represent, and that’s one thing I want to do,” Byars said.
He also stresses the importance of good communication with the board of trustees whom he worked with over the summer alongside Kaufman in order to fight for what students want.
“The most important job as student body president is to advocate for students at board of trustees meetings. In the time I served Jonathan as chief of staff, I met with every single board of trustee member, I know each of them personally, I know what they like, I know what they dislike and more importantly I know how to get things done and to win,” Byars said.
Byars wants to increase student involvement on campus especially for freshman by encouraging them to create their own "Carolina community." He hopes to do so by holding weekly Twitter town halls where students can ask any questions they want. He also wants to hold open satellite office hours for all students to speak with him on a personal level.
“So one day from 12 to five I want to be at the Colloquium, and anyone can grab coffee and talk to me about any issues they want. They can talk to me about sports; I love to talk about sports. But I just want to be there for students and make sure I'm fighting for them,” Byars said.
Check out Byars' full interview at SGTV News 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6h2fQeiAdo.