USC's most recent Student Government election cycle had its fair share of exciting moments, but any of you who are incoming freshmen or who simply decided not to keep track of the campaigns might not know much about SG or our student body officers. There was a lot of talk about what the student body officers — student body president, vice president and treasurer — were going to do this term, so I sat down with Student Body President Michael Parks and Vice President Ross Lordo to discuss what they have in the works for the fall semester.
Student Government goals for the term
Both Parks and Lordo addressed the issue of student engagement during their campaigns, and they both aim to increase the visibility and involvement of SG on campus this fall.
"My primary goal is to engage more students, a higher percentage of the student body — through Student Government, through the programs and initiatives that we do in a visible manner — than any Student Government has ever done before," Parks said.
One of the main ways SG plans to do this is by interacting directly with student organizations. In years past, both officers told me, student organizations hear from SG almost exclusively during election season, but they intend for this to change.
Parks emphasized the importance of intentional communication with the student body, which involves seeking out students to see which issues are most important to them. Part of SG's role is to resolve these problems.
"Whether it be stepping up to the plate and trying to resolve problems that the student body has, whether it's Spurs and Struts and the step show being omitted from Homecoming this year — that's something that it's our duty to step up and say, 'We've heard the voice of our peers, and we want to step up and see if we can fix this,'" he said.
Lordo, who has been involved in SG for most of his three years at USC, hopes that greater interaction with the student body will help inform students about what exactly it is that the student body officers and student senate do.
"I think that's the biggest thing, working with Student Media and things like that, to try to get the message out about what we're doing. I think the issue's been that there's been a lot that's happened in Student Government ... but it doesn't get articulated to the student body," Lordo said.
As much as the SG officers plan and work with various USC offices, sometimes initiatives or campaign promises don't become a reality. In the spirit of transparency, Lordo is determined to explain any failures just as much as they would celebrate any successes.
"It's just as important to say why it can't come to fruition as it would be to say why it worked and that we're so glad it worked," he said. "I think that's a common frustration among students and something that we're really focused on with staying open and explaining how red tape gets put up."
Events, initiatives and programs
Another piece of Lordo's plan for his time as student body vice president is to turn the role into a more initiative-based position. While a large portion of his duties includes overseeing the student senate, he also has a small cabinet that works outside of the legislative branch. Lordo and this team are dedicated to a handful of projects, including a new meal plan option for Greek students, midterm course evaluations and paperless senate meetings.
The Greek meal plan option, which might be active as early as spring 2017, would feature a $300 declining balance plan, which serves as a supplement to the meals provided at houses in Greek Village. The plan is designed to make it easier for Greek students, many of whom don't participate in more costly meal plans, to get food on campus, Lordo said.
Midterm course evaluations would enable professors to get feedback halfway through the semester, rather than only at the end, so they could address issues and adjust their teaching methods before the end of the course if necessary.
In addition to these projects, Parks and his team — composed of an executive staff of seven people and a cabinet of more than 20 — are managing several initiatives of their own, including Cockstock music festival, a revised It's On Us campaign, late-night safe transportation for students and better access to water during football games.
The idea of a music festival/pep rally event was a popular part of Parks campaign, and Cockstock is the manifestation of that idea. In coordination with Carolina Productions, SG plans to host Cockstock during Homecoming on the Friday before the game. Parks hopes that this could become a USC tradition.
"I think it's going to be, just picturing it in my mind right now, on Strom fields with food trucks, with a pep rally, with students just pouring from all areas of campus down there to get together for a couple hours and just celebrate being a part of the USC community," he said. He also hinted that the music festival portion might feature some popular names and said that an artist reveal will be held within the first couple weeks of the semester.
It's On Us, a national campaign against sexual assault, already exists on many college campuses and currently has a small presence at USC. Parks plans to make it more prominent and part of the culture on campus. "We just want to brand it as much as possible — it's on us, it's on us, it's on us — so that just almost gets ingrained in people's minds," he told me.
Parks said that he and members of his staff have been working over the summer, talking with representatives from other universities, to figure out what the initiative and its programs should ideally look like on campus.
"We want to take it everywhere we can," he said, "and the vision for it is to be something that we can empower both influential men and women on our campus to buy into, because it can't just be something that's supported by one kind of sect of the student body. It needs to trickle all over the place for it to really have an effect."
Also in the spirit of increasing safety on campus, Parks hopes to implement a new late-night safe ride service to transport students to and from entertainment districts at little or no cost. In addition, after obtaining approval from the athletics department, he told me, SG plans to provide coolers of water in the Williams-Brice student section for at least the first several football games. Parks called the lack of easily accessible water "a safety concern," given Columbia's intense heat and the likelihood of dehydration.
Life as a student body officer
When I asked about life outside SG, Parks and Lordo speculated jokingly if such a thing exists.
"It's the type of job that you will never leave this office and feel like, 'Well, I got everything done this week. I'm good to go, I can relax this weekend,'" Parks told me. "You can physically leave the office, but you're always doing the job."
Parks particularly emphasized the importance of time. As a student of finance and risk management, he said he has had to become more skilled at working smarter rather than harder in terms of priorities and efficiency. Given that the SG year begins and ends in March, the current officers are nearing the halfway point of their terms.
"One thing that's, I think, really important for anyone who holds any of these three offices is that you have to realize how much time you have," he said. "It's not a whole lot, so prioritizing is really important, and also making sure that you're not trying to do too much."
Both Parks and Lordo agreed that the positions take a great deal of time and effort and would be impossible without the efforts of their staffs.
"My staff is on point," Parks said. "And I think that's one of the reasons we're going to have such a great term, if not the reason why."
Lordo was similarly appreciative of his small cabinet, saying that he was surprised by how hands-off his position has turned out to be when it comes to being directly involved in the programs and initiatives. Much of getting the job done relies on being able to delegate.
"Having good people around you is something I've found to be really important," he said.
Advice for the freshmen
In addition to the lessons they have learned and are still learning from SG, Parks and Lordo have also picked up a few tips throughout each of their three years at USC. As an SG member who doesn't plan to go into politics, Lordo told me that he has found it to be an invaluable experience, even if it doesn't seem to connect directly with his goal of going into medical school after getting his degree in public health.
"One of the things that I think is incredibly important, that I learned luckily toward the beginning of my start at USC, was that its important to follow your passions, and it's important to not just follow the pathway that students in your major go through," he said. "It could be an a cappella group or Dance Marathon or Student Media, but just because you don't at first see the correlation between what you want to do as a career and that organization doesn't mean that they don't meet at some point."
Parks encouraged new students to take advantage of the opportunities for personal development that are available in the college experience, particularly here at Carolina.
"It's so important to — especially at a state university like USC, it's so big — to find the best 'you' amongst some of the best in the state and in the country," he said. "And I think that's what's so fun about college, is that it's a laboratory of social interactions and trying to juggle academic requirements and standards. At the same time, you're finding out who you are as a person."