Student Leadership Initiative

Developing Interest in Student Government

Tony Caravano explains how he became involved in Student Government and the leadership positions he held in high school.

Interview on 2011-11-04 00:00:00 -0400

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00:00:00.000 Caravano: I only ran for student body president, right?
00:00:03.489 Quick: Twice. [laughter]
00:00:05.390 Caravano: I think that's the only electable position that I held, right? Yeah, never senate-
00:00:12.148 Quick: The judicial board's not elected.
00:00:15.792 Caravano: In high school, I was really, really spoiled in high school.
00:00:19.581 I was president of my class freshman year through senior year and I just thought that was one of the funnest things ever;
00:00:25.224 a little bit of responsibility, more each year.
00:00:29.514 Being responsible for outcomes that your peers are going to enjoy, or you hope they're going to enjoy I really liked,
00:00:35.896 so I have this note, this like journal entry from-. Gosh, I was seventeen. I was a senior in high school.
00:00:42.962 t says: "I'd like to be the student body president at North Carolina State University."
00:00:46.367 I get to NC State and I said I don't want to be the student body president at North Carolina State University;
00:00:52.381 I actually want to be-. I want to play a smaller role in the larger organization of student government,
00:01:00.512 so I wanted to impact an individual's life rather than doing this big thing.
00:01:03.629 Like I thought I'd had my fair share of the bigger leadership from high school and I had no idea what I was talking about.
00:01:08.859 Slowly I realized, you know, I think by the middle of my sophomore year I realized that that was probably limiting.
00:01:17.526 There were so many things that I was interested in impacting campus wise
00:01:22.533 that seeing the opportunity to run for student body president kind of leapt out at me,
00:01:26.985 and it was back to that original note from the seventeen-year-old, not the freshman who said, nah, I definitely don't want to do that.
00:01:34.814 So that's sort of the evolution for me but a lot of it had to do with Wolf Aides and then, like I said,
00:01:40.352 those other leaders that when you're a freshman and you're looking up to these guys and these ladies you're really impressed by them and you want to be that.
00:01:47.529 You may not want to hold the position but you want to be like they are, and they were just great role models.

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