April 30, 2018 by Stephanie Farid
Meet the president that’s just like you, see exactly what student government can do.
Although Student Government is in charge of diverse tasks, many people who attend the University of South Florida St. Petersburg are unaware of the various duties taken care of by Student Government.
“I know they give us printing, but I’m not really even sure about what else they do,” Maria Mousa, a graduating senior, said.
President elect, Kaeden Kelso explained that being a commuter and having a job outside of school he understands that it is difficult to keep up with all the Student Government activities unless one is actively participating in Student Government.
A way that they are working towards spreading awareness of their deeds is through having different members of Student Government in different majors talk about it in their classes.
“We want to bring us to the people not necessarily have the people come out to seek us,” Kelso said.
Kelso wants students at USFSP to know that they are the voice of the people.
“We want to make sure that we do everything for you, so please come and get involved, not necessarily in Student Government but just by joining any club,” Kelso said.
Student Government is a huge part of clubs in multiple ways. First off the obvious is financially, however they also collect information from students in order to create more clubs that will be popular and beneficial to students.
“I didn’t even know that Student Government had anything to do with clubs, I just thought it was faculty that took care of all of that,” said Mousa.
Kelso explained described the job of Student Government as having three parts, or powers as he calls them. There is allocation of student fees, advocating for students and surveying the student body.
The allocation of student fees is a particular amount of money from each student’s tuition that Student Government gets and is to use towards student activities. These activities include organizations and clubs for the students, the Harborside Activities Board and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
Advocating for the students includes relaying what the students want to the administration and faculty.
Finally surveying the student body is what Student Government uses in order to know what the students need an advocate for. Each member of Student Government is responsible for connecting with students and understanding their needs in order to be able to properly reflect the desires of the student body.
As far as the students at USFSP understanding the jobs of Student Government Kelso understands that for most people, especially commuters it is difficult to get involved and understand the role of Student Government. He plans on continuing to encourage members to talk about it in their classes. He also plans on working to create a more welcoming environment to get students more involved.
“Getting students to vote is tough, I plan on working with the team to fix that,” Kelso said.
His advice for the future of Student Government is to start from the campaigning part to grab students’ attention.
“Candidates campaigning for future terms just need to campaign so hard, and then campaign harder, so everyone knows who they are and what they can do,” Kelso said.