Rambler Editor-in-Chief Tristan Reynolds interviewed Shelby Lewis, one of the candidates for the SGA Presidency. Read the full interview below, and read his interviews with the other candidates, as well as full Rambler coverage of the 2018 SGA Elections, here.

The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Tristan Reynolds: What qualifies you to be SGA President?

Shelby Lewis: Well, I’ve been on SGA since I was a freshman here, and each year I’ve become more and more involved. My freshman year, I will admit that I wasn’t as involved as I should have been, but my sophomore year I took on the responsibility of being sustainability liaison, and I think that was a very good outlet for me to become more involved with SGA, passing different proposals and helping to install more sustainability-minded projects on campus. With that, I’ve also worked with many administrators on campus, so I think I’m more close up. I’ve become closer to administrative bodies, which would help me as a president. If I became SGA president, it would help me because I had already had those connections between other people on campus, including most of the athletic staff, which I feel like not many individuals on campus are connected to. That’s a whole other aspect that hasn’t been tapped into. But I think I’m always very productive, whether it’s doing small projects or big projects, and I’m always working on trying to get something accomplished that’s going to help the student body. So I think for those reasons that I will be qualified to run for president of the SGA.

Tristan Reynolds: OK. There’s a lot of stuff I want to touch on there. To start off, you mentioned your work as sustainability liaison. What are some of the specific projects that you’ve worked on?

Shelby Lewis: So many of the projects I work on are a form of proposals, which is essentially writing out what we want done. I take it to the SGA and we vote on it, and if it gets passed, I work with administrators to like get it enforced on campus. So one of those will be to install low flow toilets into all of the updated and newly built buildings on campus because that would help save water, which is sustainable and also would help the university in the long run. A proposal I wrote this past semester was getting more water bottle filling stations in each of the buildings on campus because it makes it easier for students to fill up their bottles, which makes it easier to be sustainable and cuts back on Transy’s plastic bottle waste. Last year what I worked on for the majority of the year, with a green revolving loan fund, was working on trash can or recycling issues on campus. So currently our campus is not the best at recycling and is still trying to find new avenues to help promote recycling habits and to help people understand what they can and can’t recycle. And so for that, I made the proposal to have a matching trash can [and recycling bin] be paired together everywhere across campus, but at the moment we’re in that period where we have to first teach the student body and the faculty and the staff how to properly recycle before we can do that. So that’s something I’ve tried to, you know, encourage over the past year, and helped promote that. So then we can go and do that next step, with having trash cans and recycle bins paired everywhere. So then we become a more sustainable campus. We can recycle more and have less trash.

Tristan Reynolds: What percentage of your proposals get adopted by the full senate? How many have been carried through to what could be characterized as completion?

Shelby Lewis: So all of the ones that I’ve proposed that have been about sustainability measures have been passed on SGA. Right now I’ve been working with the administration to make sure that the water bottle fillers proposal, and then the low flow toilet proposal, are still in effect. A lot of that, a lot of what we do on SGA, is emailing people back and forth, trying to set up meetings. So I’m working on that. And then the, like I said, the recycling bin/trash can pairs have been halted because we’re trying to teach our student body and everyone else how to recycle. So usually with proposals they’re kind of an ongoing thing, so you want to make sure that they are being enforced and also being written into, not necessarily like Transylvania law, but they’re written somewhere, and then we have to follow it.

Tristan Reynolds: To close this section of the interview out, in your work in sustainability and as a senator more generally, have you been satisfied with the way that SGA is run?

Shelby Lewis: I think since my freshman year I’ve become more satisfied with the way the SGA has been run. With that, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s whoever is in on the executive committee, I think it’s more of I have stepped up with my involvement and made sure that I am more involved in SGA, because SGA is one of those things that it is what you make it. And so I wouldn’t say I was ever discontent with who was ever running SGA, but it’s more of me being discontent with myself for not stepping forward and doing more as a Senator. So I think, over the past three years, I think I’m happier with my experience in Sustainability, but I think it’s directly correlated with me stepping up and doing more work on SGA.

Tristan Reynolds: A quick follow-up there: you mentioned that you’ve been more satisfied with your work on sustainability. Do you think that is a satisfaction shared by your constituents?

Shelby Lewis: I think so. I think that right now the student body is upset, rather than happy with what’s going on, on Transy’s campus. I don’t think it’s necessarily anything to do with SGA, but it’s hard to keep a happy constituent body, with what we’re doing when the administration and SGA aren’t on the same page with a lot of things. I also will say that it’s not necessarily my personal growth and happiness with SGA. SGA, like as a whole, like I think all the senators contribute to the happiness of constituents. And I would say that with each year, I think we’ve done more and more things to make the student body happy.

Tristan Reynolds: Here’s the obvious follow-up. You mentioned a certain level of discontent among the Transy student body. Can you outline for me what you understand that discontent to be focused on? What are the issues causing that discontent?

Shelby Lewis: I’d say right now the major discontent would be about the housing situation on campus, specifically with summer housing, which we have kind of resolved on SGA. We will have summer housing here now. But for a moment there wasn’t, and a lot of students already have jobs in Lexington, and they have internships and they’re doing research and things like that. So there was a big stress for a moment where everyone was like, “we have no idea where we’re going to be this summer because we can’t live here.” I think a lot of people are also discontented with the housing situation for next year. But I think that that’s something we will have to get past and figure out. I think now that housing selection is kind of over, I think it’s maybe not as big of an issue. But then again, I’ve heard a lot of freshmen specifically talk about how they don’t have places to live on campus because there aren’t any places to live on campus. And so I think right now, like you said, I think that’s the major thing that people are discontented with at the moment, and I think that’s something that SGA has been addressing and will continue to address.

Tristan Reynolds: The other thing you mentioned in your original answer, that I want to circle back to, is the idea of SGA and the university administration not being on the same page. What do you mean by that?

Shelby Lewis: I think, so being on SGA, you have to work up the ladder to make sure you’re really going by proper terms and going through the correct people in the right order.

Tristan Reynolds: Can I interrupt? If you’re elected President, do you believe that that’s the appropriate way for students to interact with the administration?

Shelby Lewis: I think so. I would want to encourage students to first go to people who they have a connection with already, but if not I’d just start at the bottom level and work yourself up because a lot of the times, a lot of our projects, we don’t necessarily know who exactly to go talk to. I would think I would run it the same exact way because I think it keeps us in a uniform way in order to do things. And I think it’s a good order.

Tristan Reynolds: Returning to the question, I’m sorry I cut you off there. Let me ask the sort of broader philosophical question there; as president, assuming you’re elected, how do you envision a proper relationship between SGA and the university administration?

Shelby Lewis: I think a proper relationship would be not only us communicating what we want to the administration, but I think the administration needs to come to us and say like, what do the students want or what do you think or like, come to us with an issue like such as housing. What if they came to us first and then we talked about it and gave our feedback. I think that there would be more cohesion between us and the administration if they would also come to us with ideas rather than only us coming to them with ideas to talk about.

Tristan Reynolds: Who’s us in this answer—us means SGA? Do you think that there’s a role for student feedback outside of SGA?

Shelby Lewis: Of course. I think that there’s many avenues to talk to other people, to talk to administrators on campus without having to go through SGA. I know I’ve personally reached out several times to administration that wasn’t as SGA related but something that I just wanted to talk to someone about. So I do think there’s other avenues to do that, and I think you could go through, say, College Republicans or Democrats if there’s something on campus you want to see or talk to an administrator about; you should feel welcomed to contact an administrator. So just to reiterate, I do think there’s other ways to get in touch with the administration, not only through SGA, but I would say that SGA would probably be the, not the easiest route necessarily, but would be the most appropriate route to go.

Tristan Reynolds: Moving on for a moment to more nakedly political questions. Do you expect to win?

Shelby Lewis: I don’t want to say yes or no. I’m very excited for this opportunity. I’ve had a lot of people help me with different campaign materials like fliers and tri-folds and I think that, I think I would be able to win if I work hard, but I also think that someone like Mark or Jocelyn could win if they also worked hard, and I think working hard shows how much you want it. And this is something I genuinely want, and I genuinely think that I would be able to make a difference on this campus. And for me it’s not just a resume builder; it’s to help the student body. So I don’t, I don’t, I don’t want to say yes or no, but I hope so.

Tristan Reynolds: A few things I want to touch on that, but let me ask you the other nakedly political question first. Consider for a moment your opponents. Suppose that either of them were elected, do you believe that they would carry out the duties of the job to the best of their ability?

Shelby Lewis: I do think that both of them would do a wonderful job as president. I think all of us are on somewhat equal playing field. I would say though that I think I would be a better choice just because I’m not affiliated with Greek life, and I am a student athlete on campus, which is very different from the both of them. But I do think that both of them would carry out the duties as president to the best of their abilities.

Tristan Reynolds: OK. So I’m gonna pick up on something that you’ve mentioned a few times through the course of these interviews, that you are not affiliated and that you are a student athlete. Can you talk a little bit about why you think that matters?

Shelby Lewis: So, there’s not a large amount of us on SGA that are involved with sports on campus, and my experiences with sports in general and on this campus has been very positive. I think that it gives me an outlet in a way, and I think it’s also helped me establish more leadership qualities and also time management qualities. For example, I was the first pole vaulter here at Transy, which is a very daunting task to think about, to be the first of anything, but I guess in that sense I really am a pioneer, but I will be lying to say that that didn’t scare me to come and be the only person and try to build our team up. And also with track, I’ve developed a very positive attitude about things. And especially like at track meets, people will complain if the weather’s not perfect or if the track isn’t great. And I’ve always been that person that’s like, hey, but it’s a beautiful day or hey, you still ran a really good race. And I think that positivity that I’ve taken from sports, which would translate into me being president of SGA and keeping a positive attitude even when things we’re discussing may not be a cohesively agreed upon topic in meetings. To talk about Greek life a little bit. I think not being affiliated with Greek life helps me out or makes me a better candidate because I’m not going to be partial to one group on campus. And so just for my outside experiences with Greek life, I really was interested in joining Greek life. The thing that stopped me was the financial aspect of it. So it’s not that I was never interested in it, but I think that not being in it has made me look at the entire community as a whole, the Transy community as a whole rather than separating us into little aspects or little sections. Like this is the Greek life, this is a student athlete since I’m very involved with other things on campus. So just being like the student coordinator of Food Justice and being involved in sports. And College Democrats and things like that, I’ve been able to interweave and mingle with all these people, and I feel like sometimes that being in a Greek life organization might cut you off from other Greek life organizations and the whole community. So I’m not, I don’t want to come across as saying that being in Greek life isn’t a positive. I think it is still a positive, but I’m just seeing it in a different way.

Tristan Reynolds: If elected, what changes would you work to bring to SGA as a whole? Or are you broadly satisfied with the course that SGA is run?

Shelby Lewis: I wouldn’t say that I’m not satisfied with the current way that SGA is ran or communicates with administration on campus, but I do think that that connection between students and administrators can be better and more cohesive on various issues. So I think I’d really like to make sure that all student voices are being heard and make sure the administration is hearing all of those and there’s not a gap between those because I feel like sometimes the administration will be like, oh, I bet the students will love this. Well, they won’t really know until they sit and talk and ask us. So I think trying to build on that relationship is very important to me. And like I said earlier, I do think that SGA should become more involved with off-campus community building activities, meeting with the surrounding community, because I know that we would go to PumpkinMania, we do things like that, but I don’t think it’s just the happiness of the Transylvania students and faculty and staff that matters. I think it also matters what the happiness of the community around us is, and they definitely could use a helping hand every once in a while. So I do think that could be a catalyst for getting out in the community more. And I also would like to keep pushing sustainability measures on campus, whether that’s me, myself doing that, or we’re in a partnership with TEAL or the next sustainability liaison. I think that that’s something that is very important to me and I think should be important to a lot of people. So I think continuing to push that and up the stance; sustainability measures on campus is something that I would definitely want to follow or follow up with and continue to do, and I think that the student or the SGA as a body will be able to promote that as well.

Tristan Reynolds: I want to follow up on something you said. You mentioned conversations between students and the administration. Do you believe that the administration would come to those conversations in good faith?

Shelby Lewis: I think that they would; I think that they would value having student input on various campus issues, and I personally think it’s wrong if they don’t want student input on issues, especially since we are such a small campus. I think my opinion would greatly change if we were sitting at UK right now, and being UK students because that is such a large student body, but here the whole point, not the whole entire point, but one of the big points about coming to Transy for me was having that connection with administrators and having connections with your professors and others on campus, and every year since I’ve been here, I think I see improvements with that, and I think that we should continue to improve upon that, and I think that the administration would come with open ears the majority of the time and be able to listen to student voice.

Tristan Reynolds: A final question, and it’s a two part question. Supposing that one of your opponents is elected, would you remain on SGA, and would you work with them? And supposing that you are elected, how would you work with your opponents, assuming they remain on SGA?

Shelby Lewis: I would of course stay on SGA. I have had a wonderful experience with SGA the past three years, and I would not give that up for anything, and I, regardless of who’s president, vice president, chief of staff, chief of finance, any of that, I would remain on SGA because I truly believe that the point of SGA is to help the student body and to create better relationships between other students and to bring people together. And me not joining SGA just because I’m not elected president would be the exact opposite of what I’m saying. So I definitely would stay on SGA, and I also believe that my opponents would also stay on SGA because I think it’s something that we all genuinely have loved being a part of, and we all love making a difference on campus. And I think that I can make a difference as president or a senator. And I think the same goes for my opponents.

Tristan Reynolds: All right, Ms. Lewis, thank you for your time.

Rambler Editor-in-Chief Tristan Reynolds interviewed Jocelyn Lucero, one of the candidates for the SGA Presidency. Read the full interview below, and read his interviews with the other candidates, as well as full Rambler coverage of the 2018 SGA Elections, here.

The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Tristan Reynolds: Alright, the first thing I want to ask you is why are you qualified to be SGA president?

Jocelyn Lucero: I definitely feel like I’m a leader on campus. I’ve obviously been on SGA for two years now. I held the PR Chair office for both years. So I’ve had an extra leadership role in SGA apart from just being a regular senator. Also, I’m involved in a lot of different organizations on campus. So yes, I’m involved in Greek life, but I’m also involved in a lot of other things. I’m obviously involved with Spanish club. I did the new religious group on campus with Amanda DeWitt. I kind of helped her figure that out too. And also I was selected as a First Engagements Coordinator, and I work in admissions, so I kind of see a lot of different sides to Transy, and having that opportunity to be able to see all the different sides of Transy, I feel like I have a well-rounded idea of what’s going on on campus from both a student side and kind of an administration side. That’s because through admissions, through First Engagements, I do get a lot of those emails of kind of what’s going on on campus. So I feel like I’m in the know and, also I know a lot of the people in administration, and I’ve built relationships with them. So if I were to be elected and something were to come to my table where I do need to confront administration, at least I have some kind of relationship with them where I’d feel comfortable actually talking to them and kind of voicing my opinion just because over the past two years I’ve been able to build those relationships.

Tristan Reynolds: There’s a lot I want to touch on there. But the first thing I want to ask is, you mentioned being involved with a bunch of different campus organizations. Can you commit that, if elected, the presidency who would be your first priority?

Jocelyn Lucero: I think so, yes, because I understand that the presidency is a big responsibility. So I would definitely give most of my time to that. Also, that being said, like next year I won’t be a First Engagements coordinator because I’ll be a senior, and being an ambassador is basically during the week, so I feel like I would, since I am going to be a senior I’ll kind of be on the back end of the other organizations, but obviously SGA would take priority. And I’ve done a pretty good job of managing my time this year. I’m pretty impressed with myself. Freshman year I wasn’t involved in anything and I look back now and I’m like, what did I do with my time?

Tristan Reynolds: In the other interview you mentioned attending one of the strategic plan forums. How, if elected, how would you involve SGA and students more broadly in that strategic planning process?

Jocelyn Lucero: Well, I definitely loved that they had that forum open to all students. I think that maybe to improve that we could have maybe forums just for students because I feel like definitely having an administration there or teachers or faculty or whatever might have caused some students to not come; maybe they didn’t feel comfortable sharing their thoughts or something like that. So I love having the idea of everybody coming together and just voicing their opinions, kind of telling people what’s going on on campus because I don’t know what other students here have gone through because I haven’t talked to everybody on campus. So in order to improve that, I feel like we definitely need to have a conversation about what’s going on on campus because if we don’t then obviously they can’t do anything because we don’t know what’s wrong. So that’s one of the ways that I think that we could improve that and kind of involve SGA, like advertise it to the, all the students, you know, even if we just have to go personally to people and be like, ‘Hey, I know you’re involved in this organization, you need to come to this forum because you have a specific voice on campus that we haven’t heard of yet.’ So that’s kind of what I would do.

Tristan Reynolds: You’ve talked a bit about conversations between different groups on campus and between different student groups and the university. So I want to explore that a little bit more. Assuming you’re elected, how do you view the idea of a proper relationship between SGA and the university administration?

Jocelyn Lucero: I think it obviously needs to be a positive relationship. However, I understand that there are limitations to it and obviously I would love to say that

Tristan Reynolds: What do you mean by limitations?

Jocelyn Lucero: Because the administration puts limitations on the students. And then a lot of times I’ve seen how the administration has put limitations on SGA, like whether that be certain projects that we can’t pursue or we’re shut down immediately. Just kind of even the chain of order or the chain of command, how we have to go through this person first and this person just to get to the person that we actually need to talk to. That’s a big limitation I feel like. Obviously you have to do that though in order to get stuff done. So that’s one of the things that I realized that I would love to just take all of these ideas for students and just go to the administration and be like, you need to fix this, students are angry, but I can’t do that because they’re not going to listen to me if I’m just going to go knocking on their door raising hell. So I understand that there needs to be a diplomatic relationship between SGA and the administration to the point where I can comfortably talk with the administration, whether that’d be President Carey or Holly Sheilley and kind of just bring to the table what students want, but do it in such a way that I’m not shut down immediately or they just brush me off or they think I’m just being crazy or whatever.

Tristan Reynolds: You mentioned the relationship between students and the university. Do you think the university comes to that relationship in good faith?

Jocelyn Lucero: That’s a hard question. I think that maybe the administration does have the students’ best interest sometimes, or maybe they do all the time, but as students we don’t really see that. But I think in order to kind of make that relationship better, I feel like there has to be a lot of transparency and clarity. So when the administration does things that affect students we need to know very clearly what’s going to be happening there.

Tristan Reynolds: What do you mean by things that affect students?

Jocelyn Lucero: Just any decisions that the administration makes. It affects students. In one of our previous SGA meetings, we were talking about summer housing, how they eliminated summer housing, which they fixed; now they’re now offering summer housing in Forrer. At least it’s being offered. When they did that, they did it so late, and they also kind of just sent out a blank email. It wasn’t even to the whole student body when that’s an issue that obviously affects all of us because so many of our students stay on campus during the summer. So just things like that, they need to take into account students’ voices before they kind of make those decisions because obviously that directly affects our students. So any decisions like that really, which is basically almost all of the decisions that the administration makes. I do like though how they’re recreating the GE system, how the Student Affairs committee has had a say in that GE new plan or whatever you want to call it. So it’s just adding more things like that and the strategic planning forum where they’re actually calling on students to come participate in these forums. That’s what needs to happen because like I said, all of those decisions that are being made involve students and kind of how students work here at Transy and how they are able to study and whatnot.

Tristan Reynolds: If elected, how would you work to ensure that students have a greater voice in the, in the running of the university in the way that you just described?

Jocelyn Lucero: I can’t ensure that, that’s the thing, but I can definitely try my hardest to advocate for students to let me know their voice and opinions. But we have all these forums sometimes, and people don’t show up, and I am fully aware of that. But if elected SGA president, I would make it my priority to make sure that we are hearing all of the students’ voices, you know, we do have these forums and they’re big events, but maybe a lot of people don’t come to them. So maybe we need to take a different kind of plan on how to do that. Maybe I do have to go personally up to students, like in the library, or maybe I have to go up to people in the cafeteria. Like I said earlier, go to presidents of certain organizations that I know that I haven’t talked to or that I don’t know what their opinion is on things. So if elected president, I think that I would take that upon myself to do. Because I know, I mean obviously I would love to have these forums, and I would love for everybody on campus to show out. I would love for people to fill out surveys and all this stuff. But the matter, the reality is that not everybody does. And the few voices that do come to those forums or that do fill out the surveys like I said, they’re the same voices that we hear over and over again. Which is great, I’m not saying we don’t want to hear their voices either, but I just want a variety of different opinions, and even on a day to day basis, if I’m just talking to my friends or just people I know, I’ll hear them talk about things going on at Transy, and I’m like, ‘OK, well why don’t you bring that to SGA’ and so forth. And I realize that they’re like, well, what is SGA going to do for us? Which is true in some way.

Tristan Reynolds: I want to push you on that a little bit.

Jocelyn Lucero: Yeah, go ahead.

Tristan Reynolds: You’re talking about it in a sense that the first thing that you have to do is make sure that the students show up. But what, what’s the incentive for students to show up if they have no faith that they’ll be listened to? And full disclosure here, I was at the same panel that you were at, and I think a lot of what we heard was that students didn’t have that faith. How do you see those two things interacting?

Jocelyn Lucero: Well, because at that forum that we both were at, Johnnie [Johnson] kind of said something where he was like, ‘Oh you students you have an advocate, you just don’t know who it is. You need to go from one person to the next person.’ And obviously there was a lot of backlash on that or whatever you want to call it. Because students did say that they didn’t feel heard, and even if they do tell somebody what’s the point, nothing’s going to change. Even a professor said that, right? How she contacted administration and nothing happened. So what’s the point? But I think that obviously nothing is going to change overnight, and it is definitely not going to change if I don’t hear your voice. Do you know what I mean? So that’s just the first step. It’s a baby step. It’s a small step, yeah, it probably won’t change a lot of stuff, but at least it’s a step in the right direction because if people aren’t voicing their opinions then obviously we’re not going to get anywhere. I think as an incentive, I would just kind of stress that, that this is the first step to be able to see change at our university, and I just want to make sure that everybody feels included in it and everybody feels like everybody’s opinion is equally accounted for and taken into consideration, even if that’s just me taking into consideration or even just SGA listening to everybody. And then that’s on the administration. Obviously SGA would try to push for the administration to listen to the students. That’s what we do. Administration’s going to do what they want, but we can still push on our front. So I know that I would do everything I can possibly do to make sure that the students, that I somehow get change for the students. But like I said, I can’t ensure that because that’s not my decision. That’s the administration’s decision to make.

Tristan Reynolds: Shifting topics a bit. You’ve talked a lot through these two interviews about different student organizations, so I want to ask you how, again supposing you’re elected, how do you see SGA interacting with other student organizations?

Jocelyn Lucero: Well I think one of the main uses of SGA is to help other student organizations. We fund other student organizations and their events and all the what not. So we should be a resource for other organizations to come to if they need help, whether that be funding, whether that be advertising, whether that just be they need help getting to the administration or whatever. So I definitely see SGA as a resource first. Someone or something that other student organizations can use to help whatever they…how do I word this? Just a resource for other student organizations to use so that those student organizations can be present on campus a lot more than they already are and be equal so all our organizations are on the same level, if that makes sense. Because I think there’s definitely some organizations that people think a little bit more power or they’re bigger or they have more voice or whatever.

Tristan Reynolds: Can I ask you to be a little more explicit about that?

Jocelyn Lucero: About what organizations?

Tristan Reynolds: Yeah.

Jocelyn Lucero: Well, obviously the big elephant in the room, Greek life, you know, a lot of students and other student organizations think that Greek life just overpowers the university. And I myself am in Greek life, so I understand where they’re coming from.

Tristan Reynolds: Do you think that’s a fair assessment?

Jocelyn Lucero: That Greek life does have too much power? I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. I think that. Oh, I’m sorry. Can we go back? Did you say, do I think it’s fair or do I think that that’s true?

Tristan Reynolds: Fair assessment in the sense that it’s reflective of reality.

Jocelyn Lucero: OK, well then, you know, I think that’s a hard and tough question. I definitely think that obviously every single individual Greek organization on campus has a voice, and we sometimes lump just everybody else together, if that makes sense. We say, Oh, this chapter, this chapter, this chapter, this chapter, and then unaffiliated people. So I think that’s not very right. We should definitely, like I said, in that group of unaffiliated people, venture in there and actually figure out who’s in that group and make sure that every single person in that group is heard because not all affiliated people think the same way.

Tristan Reynolds: Returning to the original question, you mentioned elevating campus organizations that we don’t hear from so often. Let me ask you about the converse of that. Is it possible to give everyone more of a voice, or do some organizations’ voices have to quiet in accommodation to that?

Jocelyn Lucero: I think first I want to give more organizations a bigger voice. I think that’s what I want to do first. Then if we realize that we need to quiet some organizations, then we’ll go down that road. But first I think that we need to focus on the people who don’t have a voice and then figure that out later.

Tristan Reynolds: Time for some blatantly political questions. Do you expect to win?

Jocelyn Lucero: I don’t really expect anything, you know. Coming into this race or campaign, I kind of just wanted to do this for myself because we kind of see the same people over and over again in these positions. And maybe some people say that about me too, like, oh, she’s the First Engagements Coordinator or whatever or, and I don’t know. 

Tristan Reynolds: I want to pause here and dig into that a little bit. Again, do you think that’s a fair assessment in that it’s reflective of reality?

Jocelyn Lucero: That the same people are being in these positions over and over again? I think so. I think on our campus we kind of see the same leaders and the same people apply to all of these leadership positions on campus, which it isn’t necessarily a problem, but you know, sometimes you just need a little bit of a change. Because like I said, it’s the same people over again. So it’s the same voices being heard. It’s the same organizations and power.

Tristan Reynolds: Why do you think that is?

Jocelyn Lucero: I don’t know. You know, I think it’s, I feel like a lot of it is people don’t want to try because they feel like even if I apply, it doesn’t matter, I’m not going to get it, so and so’s going to get it anyways, cause they always get it. That’s something that I’ve heard from my friends over and over and over again and I feel like is something that’s heard around campus. I don’t know if that’s administration’s fault that people are hiring, or I don’t know if that’s just because nobody else is applying for these positions, but maybe like I said, they don’t apply because they don’t think they’re going to get it. So that’s kind of why I just put myself in here too. I don’t think I’m going to get it, but I might as well try it. There’s no harm in trying. That’s just me.

Tristan Reynolds: I want to ask you a bit about the candidates. Thinking about your other two opponents, and suppose one of them is elected, either of them is elected. Do you think they’ll carry out the duties of the job to the best of their ability?

Jocelyn Lucero: I do think that they would. And that’s one of the things that, that’s why if I lose, I’m not necessarily going to be crushed or anything because I think both of the candidates are very capable people, and I think that we actually share similar views. And I know Shelby, she’s unaffiliated, so that would be great for SGA. But I also know Mark, and Mark and I are very similar on a lot of the same things. We’ve talked before and even in SGA, we usually have similar opinions. So I think that they’re both very capable, and if either of them were elected, I think that we would be in good hands.

Tristan Reynolds: I want to end with a two part question. Suppose that you lose, would you stay on SGA, and how would you help the president, whoever it is, improve campus?

Jocelyn Lucero: Oh yeah, for sure I would stay on SGA. Like I said, even when I was deciding whether or not I was going to do this I was like, oh, I’m going to be on SGA anyway, so I might as well try it because I don’t think I’d be a sore loser or anything like that. But yeah, I would stay on SGA, and I would definitely help the president in any way I could. Like I said, I’m on Student Affairs committee, and I’ll probably stay on Student Affairs committee if I lose. And I’ll just keep on chugging, keep on doing all the projects that I’m doing and really just see if the president needs any help that they do need. Because I understand that being president is a big responsibility, and maybe they might need help. Like I was saying, reaching out to students. I can do that for them if they don’t want to do it because I would love to do that. And just have a more active role. And that’s kind of what I do in a lot of different organizations too. Even though if I’m not in a position of leadership, I just kind of ask and see if there’s anything that needs to be done because at the end of the day, we’re all in this for the students. That’s what SGA is; it’s a student government it’s supposed to represent the students, it’s supposed to be there for the students. And that’s one of the main reasons why I joined it last year in the first place. So that’s what I would do to help the president if I were to lose.

Tristan Reynolds: OK, here’s the second part. Supposing you win, and the other two candidates remain on SGA, how do you see yourself working with them and with the larger Senate to implement some of the ideas we’ve talked about?

Jocelyn Lucero: I would definitely strive to have a very cohesive senate and have a productive one at that because I think that SGA can very easily get into this thing where, oh yeah, we meet every Wednesday, and I’m going to email this person, oh, I’m going to make a meeting with this person, and then nothing ends up getting done. So I definitely want a very productive SGA, whether that’d be even just small projects, getting a stapler next to the printer in Hazelrigg downstairs. I always use that lady’s stapler. But even if it’s little projects, like those are little victories. And then like I said, if I want us to pursue bigger projects too, maybe things that, you know, might cause a little bit of tension with administration, but at least try.

Tristan Reynolds: I got to ask you to be more explicit on that.

Jocelyn Lucero: I mean I feel like a lot of times maybe we shy away from different projects that are like, oh, the administration isn’t going to like that or things like that. But I think that we should at least try and look at the possibilities for venturing those kind of projects. Try it.

Tristan Reynolds: What kind of projects?

Jocelyn Lucero: One time we tried to pave the dirt. I feel like every SGA tries to pave the dirt path, and we have looked at it in many different ways, and it just always gets shut down. But hey, maybe we just have to keep on doing it, and maybe eventually the administration will say yes, but to be determined, just things like that. And like I said earlier, I wanted to put a mural up where the cooling tower is, but everybody was like, well, Forrer is going to come down. So there’s just no use in putting up a mural. But I, that was my project sophomore year, so it could have at least been up for two years. I don’t care if Forrer was going to come down or whatever. At least it would have been up there for a little bit. I feel like that happens a lot too, where we start projects, and then we’re kind of like put in this stage of limbo because Oh, the university doesn’t know what’s going to happen. And especially with all this construction going around because obviously they don’t know what’s going to happen. But I think that even if we know that those projects are going to be limbo, but I think we just need to go ahead and pursue them and just be like, well, we might as well try it because you never know what happens. Like the pool table that I’m trying to get for students. We were going to put it in Forrer, but Forrer is coming down, so where are we going to put it? Like, is it going to stay in storage? And I was just like, we just need to buy it. We have all of this money left over, and if we don’t spend it, we’re not going to get it back. So we might as well spend it on something for the students. But that was my take on it, not just talking for all of SGA, just myself personally.

Tristan Reynolds: Jocelyn Lucero, thank you for your time.

Jocelyn Lucero: Thank you so much.

Rambler Editor-in-Chief Tristan Reynolds interviewed Mark Sirianno, one of the candidates for the SGA Presidency. Read the full interview below, and read his interviews with the other candidates, as well as full Rambler coverage of the 2018 SGA Elections here.

The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Tristan Reynolds: What qualifies you to be SGA President?

Mark Sirianno: Absolutely, so I have served on SGA for three years, my whole time here at Transy; for my first year and half of my second year I was just a senator or representative. But for the past year and a half I have served as the Student Affairs Chair, so basically SGA is divided into two committees, Academic Affairs and Student Affairs. Student Affairs oversees everything to do with student life. The easiest way to talk about it is everything on the residential side of Broadway is Student Affairs and everything on the academic side of Broadway is Academic Affairs. That’s not exactly right, but that’s a kind of easy way to think about it. So I’ve spent a lot of time both as a senator and overseeing senators, overseeing projects. So as far as having an understanding of how the university works and having an understanding of how government works, I definitely feel qualified in that respect. Along with that, I’ve also been very involved with campus as a whole. I’ve served as an admissions ambassador, I’ve served as a First Engagement scholar, I’ve done research on campus, have joined numerous clubs and organizations, and I think that’s something that’s really helped me. I’ve actually tried to cut back on my involvement; I’m no longer a First Engagement scholar. I haven’t take any leadership roles in the organizations I’m currently involved with because I want to devote myself to SGA. Those other organizations and other jobs have shown me a lot of what needs to be done. I’ve gotten a lot of different perspectives. I’ve made a lot of great relationships with administration. I want to be the representative of the students. I don’t want to be biased by any of my relationships with other organizations; I don’t want to be biased with my relationships to administration. I want to be here for the students, I want to put the students first. So I think that’s what’s qualified me, as I’ve been on SGA for a long time, as long as it’s possible for me to have been, and I’ve been involved all over campus, but now I’m ready to devote all my attention to the students.

Tristan Reynolds: So you’ve been the chairman of the Student Affairs; would you characterize your tenure there as a success and on what grounds?

Mark Sirianno: Absolutely. So the easiest metric by which to judge Student Affairs or Academic Affairs is by projects completed. That’s not always representative of success, but it is representative of what we’ve been doing. So my first semester I was a little bit slow to get started; I had a little bit of trouble with making sure people were on task and getting stuff done. But this year we’ve completed well over 30 projects, some big, some small, some as small as just, you know, making sure there are markers and erasers for the whiteboard walls in the new dorms all the way up to trying to buy a $1,500 printer for Shearer art building, which should be coming soon; we’re very excited about that. There’s been a wide range of things, but we’ve gotten a lot done on student affairs. I’m very proud of that; I think the community’s been very successful, and we’ve had a good time doing it which is also important to me.

Tristan Reynolds: Moving on to nakedly political questions. Do you think you’re gonna win?

Mark Sirianno: I really don’t know. I hope to win obviously, but both Shelby and Jocelyn, my opposition, are both very good candidates. They’re both wonderful people, and I respect both of them a huge amount. I would love to be president; I do think I’m the most qualified, and I do think I will do the best job, but I can’t confidently say I will win or lose. You have three great candidates, and I really hope the students make their decision, and I’ll respect the decision they make.

Tristan Reynolds: Of the three great candidates, what distinguishes you in particular?

Mark Sirianno: Absolutely. On paper I have the most experience with leadership on SGA. I believe Shelby and I have been on SGA for the same amount of time, but I’ve taken on more leadership roles. I’ve been the Student Affairs Chair, so just purely SGA speaking, I have the most experience. Beyond that, I really do think it comes down to a commitment to your involvement on campus and where your loyalties are going to lie, and mine are without a doubt with student government and where I want to be. So I’ve been overly involved on campus, but I really have tried to dial that back so that I can just focus on that and just focus on the students, so that’s my goal. I have all the relationships; I’ve made relationships with administration, they all know me, I know all of them. I’ve made it my goal to try and know just about everyone in my class and the classes above, below me. So I think I’m both qualified by student government standards and by a just university as a whole involvement in standards, and more than anything I’m ready to put student government and the students first, moving forward. 

Tristan Reynolds: Now to something more philosophy oriented… Are you satisfied with the way that SGA runs now?

Mark Sirianno: Yes and no. SGA is a very unique organization on campus; it struggles with a lot of different things. We always struggled to make sure that we try to be as representative as possible. That’s sometimes very difficult to do. We are getting stuff done, we have been quite successful, but I do think if I were elected president I would try and change a lot of things. More than anything, I would try and change our involvement. I think currently on campus there are a lot of decisions being made without student input which in some cases is very necessary and understandable. But in other cases a lot of conflicts could be avoided if simply a student voice were there to be made clear. One obvious example is recently there was an administrative decision to not allow summer housing for students on campus, and we kind of caught wind of that on SGA. After the decision had
been made, we were like, well, wait. Student housing on campus is something students really need; students were doing research, they have internships in Lexington. That’s something that you can’t take away, and we have voiced our opinion, and that decision has been changed; ideally that decision never would have been made. I think SGA has the platform to be involved in those decisions. We are the representation of the student body, and I think we should have been there when that original discussion occurred. SGA has become successful now, but I think they need to be a more integral part of all decisions made on campus. I don’t think the student voice can be heard enough; this university is for the students. It’s here for us to get an education, and without us they wouldn’t exist, and the more we get away from students being involved in decisions, the sooner this university will cease to exist. That’s something I really want to push for, to make sure that we are  involved in those decisions, we as students, and I think SGA has a platform by which to do that.

Tristan Reynolds: Following up on that, the university has recently started it’s latest strategic planning process. How should students in SGA in particular be involved in that process?

Mark Sirianno: Absolutely. I mean, the university is trying, they’ve heard us, they want to get us involved and they’re having sessions open to students.

Tristan Reynolds: Are you satisfied with those sessions?

Mark Sirianno: I am and I’m not, I think that there needs to be more timing because a lot of times I’ve had class during them, or they’ve run late and I’ve had to leave early. Things like that have caused some issues, and their productivity (granted I haven’t been to all of them) is maybe questionable. I think student voice needs to be there, and that’s what we’re working towards, as long as that’s where the decision comes from. One worry I’ve always had is that they will have these strategic planning sessions and invite students to come so that they feel like their voices are heard, and then decisions will be made based on other criteria.

Tristan Reynolds: What action would you take as SGA president to ensure that that doesn’t happen?

Mark Sirianno: Mostly, so, we have these strategic planning meetings that are open to everyone, what happens after those strategic planning meetings is some of the officials take the results of that meeting and meet privately about what to do with the voices heard. I think it is in that scenario that a student representative needs to be there as well to make
sure information isn’t misinterpreted, misunderstood, to make sure that the issues that were brought up are actually being addressed opposed to just kind of hand waving over them. That of course may not always be possible, but I think the student representation should not just be when the university asks for it. I think the student representation should be all the time if that makes any sense. I don’t think it should just be in those settings
where we say, oh, come talk to us; I think it should be now we’ve heard you and we’re going to go make a decision based on what you said, and we’re going to have a student there when we make that decision as well.

Tristan Reynolds: As SGA president, what steps would you take to ensure that a student omnipresence is a priority for not only you but the Senate?

Mark Sirianno: So omnipresence is interesting; I don’t know if that’s ever attainable. Obviously that’s the goal, but I don’t know if that is a possibility. There will always be decisions made without student representation, budgetary things. Things like that, I think, are warranted to not have student representation necessarily involved with every step. However, it really just comes down to SGA has the framework there, the student government president already meets with the president of the university at least once every two weeks. That’s the standard, that’s normal. I would honestly try and increase that, maybe not just with the president but with other officials on campus, just to get a good grasp of what is going on. Even if I wouldn’t necessarily be involved with the meetings, I would just say, “Hey, what have you had meetings about? What is it that is on your plate as your role as an administrator?” Whether it be dean of students, anything like that. I think those meetings are very important and that’s something that I would try and make sure occurred. Again, the framework is there, the requirement for meetings is there, the availability for meetings. As student government president, you technically are supposed to be the representative for all of the students. I don’t think any administrator should ever tell you “no, I don’t want to meet with you” when they’re here for us, for the students, and that’s just something I would try and push very hard is to have those meetings to find out what decisions are being made, how they’re being made, and then from there say, OK, so next week you have a meeting about general education, something like that if I can’t be there, I’m going to send one of my senators who’s interested in that topic and just in general education, probably from the Academic Affairs committee, to go and sit in that meeting. Would that be all right? Can that happen? I’ll make sure they’re there and available and just really make sure that not just myself, but all the senators are getting involved with that. They can come back to full SGA and make a report about it. Just making sure that the administration knows we want to be involved and not necessarily forcing ourselves in, but making it clear that we want to be involved as well.

Tristan Reynolds: OK. I feel like we’ve touched on this, but I want to ask you the general question. What do you see as the proper relationship between SGA and the university’s
administration?

Mark Sirianno: The relationship can take a lot of forms; most of the time we are absolutely on the same team. We’re all here to further the university, we’re all here for the students to get an education both in the academics, the subjects we study, and also in life, and that should be our goal, and that is what unites us. That’s what unites the students and the administration is we have the same goal, and that doesn’t mean that any party should always win, there are definitely sides, like we can’t say, “oh, students want a a ferris wheel in Back Circle because that’d be fun” and expect the university to pay a whole bunch of money to get that done. That doesn’t make sense financially, and therefore the university should weigh in on that discussion. I do think that the student voice should be heard and should be put before most other considerations. Again, I talked a little bit about the decision to maybe not have housing for students on campus during the summer; I do believe that was probably a financially sound decision, and I think that would have saved the university money. However, I think it was to the detriment of the students. I think that it’s that kind of situation where the student voice should be made more clear and listened to. The relationship should always, ideally, be positive, and they should always agree and go for the same thing, but that’s obviously not always going to happen, so it needs to be a discussion; it may not always be a fun discussion, but there always needs to be discussion there.

Tristan Reynolds: Do you believe that as a general rule, the administration conducts those discussions in good faith?

Mark Sirianno: Yes I do. I think the administration tries very hard to have the students’ best interest in mind when they make decisions. I think a lot of times they may not have all the information; they may not really know what the students want or what they think is best for them. I do think the administration tries very hard to have the students best interest in mind. Does that always happen? No, absolutely not, but I do believe they try.

Tristan Reynolds: To finish up, I want to ask you a double question. If one of your opponents wins, do you believe that they will do the job to the best of their ability?

Mark Sirianno: I do. I think they will do the job to the best of their ability. Like I said, I have a lot of respect for both of the other candidates. I think they both bring unique attributes and unique ideas to the table, and I think they will try very hard. I think that I am better suited for the position; I think I can better accomplish the goals of the student body. I think I can better make sure the students’ needs and wants are addressed. I do believe that both candidates would work to the best of their ability; it’s just a matter of experience. It’s a matter of drive, and I think that’s kind of where I come through. I believe in the other two candidates; I think they’re great people, and I just believe I’m slightly better suited for the position as president.

Tristan Reynolds: Suppose you win, how would you conduct your relationship with your opponents, assuming they remain on SGA?

Mark Sirianno: I sincerely hope they do. As I said, they’ve both been wonderful senators. Actually, both of them are on the Student Affairs Committee, which I am the chair of. They’re both very productive; they both completed a fair amount of projects, and I would love to see them continue to do so. Obviously you can help this university from all different areas, from all different places, and I would love to see them continue on SGA. I would love to hear their ideas of what they wanted to do as president and maybe incorporate them if that’s something the student body would like. I suppose there is no one answer of what I think our relationship will be like because it’s not totally dependent on me, but I would hope that they would still be a contributing member, they’d still want the university to become the best place it could be, they’d still want to put students first, and I think our relationship could be great.

Tristan Reynolds: Thank you for your time.