It’s election season for the Student Government Association, and we have some awesome candidates running against each other. Today I interviewed Kennedy Montgomery and Khalil Anthony who are running to be the next President and Vice President for our campus. Before diving into their campaign initiatives, I wanted to get to know each one of them better and their stance on why they should be our next President and Vice President.
As soon as Kennedy Edward Montgomery stepped foot on UNT’s campus, he has been active and excited to interact with students and move toward positive social change. He began as a member NAACP, as WDS (When Disaster strikes) co-chair and eventually chair. Through this amazing and engaging organization, he was able to realize how important it is to organize and fight for your community. As WDS chair he strived to address all issues plaguing the black community, but also worked to raise awareness for how NAACP works to serve all students not just students of minorities.
After working with NAACP, he also had the opportunity to also transition to SGA by first serving on an external committee, The Committee for the Education and Prevention of Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence. Through this committee, he worked to bring awareness to these issues and use collaboration to show a unified front to continue to overcome them. This was not only important to him but close to his heart as he truly understands how big an issue sexual assault is. After serving on this committee, he was able to become a senator for CLASS. He had a passion for being a senator and listening to student concerns. Every time he talked to students and listened to their issues, he became better at understanding what students needed and how SGA can work to better serve students. Kennedy also worked to extend scholarships and academic internships for his college by speaking and working with deans within the department. Recently as a senator he has also strived to build coalition, and use this coalition to promote diversity and diversify our UNT professors. Kennedy believes this is not only important but essential to all students in that diversity fosters community for enhanced awareness and variety of perspectives that we can utilize to solve any issues that may arise.
Khalil Anthony has been in SGA for the past 2 years; first as a Freshman Intern where he was given the opportunity to shadow various executive board members and learn about their roles. During his second year in SGA, he had the opportunity to expand on what he learned his freshman year. He was then elected Speaker Pro Tempore of the Student Senate which allowed him to work closely with the current SGA Vice President to develop legislation as well as serve as her Right Hand Man.
In these 2 years he has also participated in ASB (Alternative Service Breaks), a program in which students go across the country to serve community with various social issues. He evolved from being just a participant to a Site Leader. During this experience he learned about the different types of leadership styles that exist and the effect they have on the motivation of a team. This upcoming year he will become the Executive Director of ASB.
Khalil is also apart of the Green Jackets, a service and spirit organization on campus. In fact, it’s the oldest student organization on campus. He has taken part in the Homecoming Crew where he was the Co-Spirit Day Coordinator. In this role, he was able to learn the process of planning and implementing purposeful student engagement.
Why did you decide to run for President/VP?
KM: I am running for SGA President because I believe we as students have the power to not only come together but use our voices for positive change. I wish to not only serve all students, but bring unity and strive to make a collaborative effort to uplift our community and UNT as a whole. I am on this journey because I believe in all students and our ability to contribute to this university. I am here for the people, so we together may rise not only for ourselves, but for our community and for those that will come after us.
KA: I am running for SGA VP because I believe in the power of the students, and how if we work together and UNITE, the possibilities for change are endless.
What are some of the key issues you are basing your platform on?
KM/KA: UNITY
We stress unity because we understand what it takes to make a positive impact on this campus. Unity is necessary to combat all issues, facing all students. Together we can help one another and strive to improve this quality and condition of this university.
Intentional Diversity & Focused Versatility
We need to be intentional as it relates to the way in which we utilize, maintain and recruit the diverse members of this community. Diversity is power, and thus we should build strategic plan and initiatives to not only increase diversity within UNT faculty such as professors, but we should strive to retain these members in order to enhance our education and foster spaces for free thought and variety of perspectives.
We also need to be focused in how we are versatile for students. For example, we should strive to always accommodate students as much as possible such as creating payment plans for parking passes or extending the reach of our services to help all students like the food pantry. By doing small things like this we can better accommodate students and continue to shift as students needs develop.
Lastly we have purposeful student engagement and community uplift.
These two concepts run hand-in-hand. We have to strive for more purposeful student engagement, whether it be through programming or useful collaboration. For example, being more inclusive and creating more opportunities for non-traditional students or freshmen. Through small initiatives like this, we can not only improve engagement but use this engagement to propel student-led change, which will in turn work to uplift our community by empowering more students. We can also make specific strives to uplift our community as whole, ensuring everyone feels not only welcomed, but supported and represented.
How will you build upon what the current President and Vice President have started?
KM: Current administration has done a phenomenal job at working with UNT administration in order to better serve students and provide more resources to campus. We would like to continue this effort in a plethora of ways.
First, we would like to refund the feminine hygiene product initiative and continue to develop how it works as it relates to distribution and funding. We believe this is not only important but crucial to serving students.
Next, we would like to continue and enhance the way in which we interact with students by expanding “SGA On-The-Go!” office hours. By literally going around campus and/or different specific buildings such as the GAB or even residence halls, we can be more available to students and better serve their needs.
Thirdly we would also strive to continue accommodating students as much as possible. For example, by continuing to work with UNT transportation. We need more efficient bus routes at night, as well as better on-campus transportation such as Lime and Hybrid scooters. We want to work to UNT administration as well as transportation to make this happen.
Furthermore, we also believe current administration has been strategic as it relates to how we address safety on our campus. We would like to continue this tradition and expand the safety within our campus by reallocating emergency poles to more utilized or saturated areas.
Lastly we believe we must continue to serve all students to ensure we are improving their quality of life as much as we can! We would like to add more accessibility for disabled individuals. For example, instituting chimes in order to them better navigate around campus.
The current SGA President and Vice President have began that conversation of inclusivity through the menstrual cycle initiative as well as the gender neutral bathroom campaign. I feel as if they are leaving us in an excellent place inclusively speaking. I also feel as if they are really helping students feel welcomed on campus, and I believe that they are truly setting us up for success.
Why #UNITYWITHKENNEDYANDKHALIL as your campaign slogan?
KM/KA: Well, we say #UNITYwithKennedy&Khalil because we understand there is power in collaboration and students voices are needed to have a true government of the people. Mother Teresa once said “I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot, but together we can do great things.” We wish to bring unity so we may work together to establish a foundation to achieve students desires. We want to hear from all students! We want to know what students want and what students need so we, as students, can come together and rise to fight for what students desire! We believe in the phenomenal power of students, for students have the power to not only leave an ever lasting impact on this campus but change the fabric of UNT! We hope #UnityWithKennedy&Khalil can be an idea everyone can understand and feel apart of. We are nothing without each other and only through building coalition and striving for unity even in times of disagreement can we make any true progress. We believe that through understanding, new ideas, inclusivity, transparency, and YOU we can accomplish a lot. But, we feel as if we must first UNITE with one another before we can even attempt to enact any positive change.
One of your campaign action items is implementing parking passes on a payment plan. How do you plan to get this done?
We have already started having conversations with Transportation & Parking Admin to discuss the feasibility of this student concern and the results we gotten have been very positive. We first made sure that they understood the initiative we were trying to address. We have also been having conversations with students asking how they feel about parking prices to not only develop a payment plan, but a reasonable one at that.
We were able to introduce a resolution that actually focused on implementing payment plans for parking passes. The senate passed this resolution, yet is has not yet came to fruition. In order to implement this we would continue to work directly with UNT administrators as well as UNT transportation. We would also have a special opportunity to do this because SGA President and Vice President’s are gifted several committees, including those relating to transportation and those exact issues. As a member of these committees, we will work to plan, organize and even figure out logistics in order to implement this imitative. We believe as long as we continue to work with UNT administration and we have students behind us, we can truly accomplish amazing things!
What makes you stand out from your opponent? (Why should we as students vote for KSquared?)
KM: We come to you with unique passion and experience but most importantly, an undying belief in the phenomenal power of students. We understand we cannot accomplish our goals alone and only through effective collaboration and voices from all students can we truly make any positive change. We believe in all students. It is student passion and our will to not only serve students but unite and uplift our community that drives us.
KA: Experience in SGA is definitely not a requirement for this position but is definitely a plus. Considering we’ve both been in SGA for 2 years, we both have strong relationships built within UNT’s Admin. So, when assuming the positions in June, we won’t be starting from square one— having to resell our vision, but continue building our relationships to strengthen community. Simply put, we aren’t building a relationships, we are redefining them.
Come out to the Presidential and Vice Presidential Debate this Thursday, April 4, 2019 in Union 385 at 7:00PM to hear more about their campaign actions and what they plan to achieve as President and Vice President.