Full of energy, plans and accomplishments is the perfect way to define and introduce the sweet Katie Deaven, our current ASNMSU vice president. The 21-year old from Los Alamos, NM is a senior majoring in math and philosophy. Above all that, she still finds time to be part of the university’s senate, as well as participate in and support many other clubs and activities on campus. It’s a pleasure to have her sharing some of her thoughts and experiences with us as our very first Campus Celebrity. Take a look!
Why have you decided to run for vice president of ASNMSU?
“I was in senate for two years before I ran for vice president. I just really like ASNMSU as a whole. I thought it was really interesting to see what ASNMSU students were doing and actually interact with them in such a more cohesive level, you know? It’s not about college anymore; it’s about what students are doing as a whole.”
As a vice president, what are your main tasks?
“One of the main things I do is attend senate meetings. I’m responsible for making sure that senate meetings are running smoothly, everything is getting done with the senate process that needs to be done, and students are getting funded. But except from that I go to a lot of meetings that have to do with the inner works of ASNMSU and that’s really cool. I’d say that will be the main idea of my job, which is kind of hard to explain.”
What have you accomplished on this position?
“One of the things I ran on was making senate a completely paperless process. The previous vice president kind of started that, but it was a little hard finding something we could keep all the bills on and everything. So I’m really proud to say that we have actually accomplished that. From this point on we are no longer going to be using packets of bills for every senator. We are saving like two thousand dollars doing that, alongside with the environmental aspects.”
What projects/events are in ASNMSU’s current agenda?
“One of the main tasks we have been doing right now has to do with homecoming. And aside from that, the NMSU vs. UNM game is coming up, which is always a big hit for both NMSU and UNM students. Last year we had a problem with the Lobo head, which we usually burn. It ended up getting left out in the rain and rusted. So this year we had a really hard time trying to come up with ideas for a Lobo and actually getting all the different departments involved. We called engineering, we called welding from DACC. We ended up getting one and we got one for the next five years, which is awesome. But we are also doing a bunch of homecoming events: there’s a free student dinner on that week, we are getting the parade set up, we are trying to do many different activities that week so students are never bored during homecoming. We have a movie on the green that week, we are going to have a concert; it’s going to be fun! And then aside from that, we have “Keep State Great” coming up, which is the on campus community service event. That’s a huge hit too. It’s so awesome, about three thousand students come and do community service.”
What are some of your goals for the term?
“Paperless legislation was definitely one of the main tasks I wanted to do. Aside from that, I would say my biggest task right now is just that there was a large amount of senators who came in brand new this semester, when we usually we have just about a 50 percent turn around rate. So usually we have an equal balance between new and old senators, but this semester there were a lot of new senators- we had only six or seven that stayed with us. So I guess my year is going to be really interesting and my goal is going to be to come up with a better transition process, so that if this ever happens again senators don’t feel like they fell into the deep end of a pool.”
What do you think about student involvement with ASNMSU?
“I think it’s actually a shame that more students don’t participate. On the last elections we had about 1,300 students voting out of a total of 17,000 students, for a budget of around 2 million dollars. ASNMSU has, at least in the money that we actually use every year, about 1.2 million dollars spent on our students. Even the people who come to our events, they’re good numbers but at the same time when you compare them to all the students that are on campus, it’s really sad to see how many students don’t use our services. And they’re already paying for it, you know? There’s an ASNMSU fee that every student pay so if they’re not using our services, they’re just wasting it away. So I really hope that we can get more students involved this year.”
What are some strategies to get more student involvement with ASNMSU?
“I think there’s definitely at least some correlation between students staying in school and students being involved in organizations. I think even if you’re just involved in one organization, you’re at least sixty percent more likely to know more about ASNMSU in general. But I think there’s a huge population of students that aren’t involved in clubs; they just come to school and then leave. So I think making events that they can know about and making an easier process for them to know about it is my goal. I’m looking in to maybe find a cohesive calendar for all students. Even though we already have like 15 different calendars around campus, that have all these random events on them, there is nothing that actually combines all of those into one. I think if we had that it’d be easier for students to know what’s going on and to be interested in what’s going on.”
Are you part of any other organizations?
“I am the president of Sophia Philosophy Club, I am the event coordinator of Law & Society Club and I am the secretary of student senate for the public trust. I also participate in a lot of other organizations. I think it’s important, especially in my position, to be supporting all clubs and their endeavors. So I try making it to different events and meetings when I can.”
What is one think that you love about being part of ASNMSU?
“There are a lot of instances that I’m just so happy of doing what I do. I just really like helping people, and so this job is awesome because you know that you’re helping make people’s college experience so much more worthwhile. I would say that is the best part of my job, just knowing what I’m doing. When you put it into perspective, it’s a really awesome deal.”
What do you have in perspective for the future? Do you plan on following a political career after graduation?
“One of my favorite philosophers, who was also a math and philosopher major, was once asked whether he thought politics was more important than all else; he said “well, that depends, if it’s successful, then it’s more important, if not, then I will stick with the philosophy and math.” I feel kind of the same way, you know? I really want to teach. That is honestly my first choice of future career, and I also plan on going to graduate school for philosophy, which is super competitive. But I feel like I’m probably going to try and do something in policy, not necessarily be a politician but I would like to be in that process of actually making policy.”
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