Student Government: Influence, not Power

Kelly Hook elaborates on the influence of student government and why it is important for students to be engaged in order for student government to be effective.

Interview on 2012-05-02 00:00:00 -0400

Transcript

00:00:00.000 The point of that phrase, that student government and student body president doesn't really have any power, they have influence,
00:00:07.272 the point is that influence comes from your ability to have others believe in what you're doing and support what you're doing,
00:00:17.770 so student government only has influence if they're supported by the student body.
00:00:23.244 If the student body doesn't even know what they're doing they're not going to have a lot of power or influence because the administrators know that.
00:00:31.583 I mean the administrators are aware of what student government is doing and how they're reaching out to the students
00:00:36.993 so if you're in a really important meeting and they ask you, what do the students think,
00:00:43.173 but you've done nothing to ask the students what they think your opinion holds very little clout.
00:00:48.821 So the point of the phrase, no power, just influence, is about students needing to get engaged.
00:00:56.034 I mean students have to get engaged in order for student government to have influence in these meetings and at these higher university level discussions,
00:01:03.437 and their ability to influence is directly related to students providing input and being engaged,
00:01:12.261 and students will only provide input and be engaged if student government is out there educating about what student government does,
00:01:19.359 about what our ability is, about what our chance for influence is if you provide us feedback and solutions to the problems, not just problems.
00:01:27.369 So as we moved forward throughout the year that phrase became a recurring thing.