Remembering Student Body Presidents
Mike Giancola reflects on past Student Body Presidents.
Interview on 2012-03-26 00:00:00 -0400
Transcript
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We've only had a few student body presidents over the years that were women
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and I think some of the most dynamic presidents we've had have been women.
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I think of Jenny Chang. I was here when Jenny was president, didn't work with her as closely,
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but what a barrier she broke when she became student body president.
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In fact that year-I don't think she was the first female student body president
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but that year, if I'm remembering right, I think all four of the executive officers that year were women,
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or three of the four. Three of the four were women, Alexis Mei was the senate president
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and I'm blanking on who the treasurer was that year. This was before I started working with student government so closely.
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But Jenny will go down as being one of the best student body presidents we've had.
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I think about Kelly Hook recently and now Chandler Thompson,
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two really great-. Chandler's just about ready to end her term, the elections are tomorrow, so I think we can start to reflect back on her year,
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but both her and Kelly have done a fantastic job.
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I think of some of the student body presidents over the years and senate presidents
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NC State, historically being a predominantly white campus,
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and you think about trailblazers. Kevin Howell I didn't work with when he was student body president.
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He and I are closer in age so it would have been awesome for that to happen.
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But I think of folks like Harold Pettigrew and Mike Anthony and Tony Caravano.
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I mean we had a year, I think three or four years running, where we had African American male student body presidents
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and each one of them as accomplished as the other-Darryl Willie was the other one I'd forgotten in that group
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great, great human beings, great leaders that have gone on to do really wonderful things since they've left us.
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