Ethan Conlee: Student Advocate VP candidate interview

USUSA committee and council settings are often very friendly. How would you handle disagreements and make decisions that may go against your fellow officers?

That’s a really good question. I think whenever there’s a difference in vision, it’s really important to do the due diligence of talking to somebody about it and seeing where exactly your point of disagreement lies. And then from there, trying to work out a compromise that works for both people. When you can’t reconcile the two, I think it’s best to agree to disagree in a polite way. You do everything you can to make sure you’re still on good terms, and then you just move ahead with what you think is best for the students.

What do you think is the best way to reach and connect with students to be able to rightfully represent them?

I think a proactive approach works best. Especially when I got into office, I thought that tools that gauge student opinion would be more effective, things like MyVoice, but really a lot of what I found is that students have a sort of trooper mentality where they really don’t like to talk about what is bothering them, unless it gets real bad. I ask students all the time, what’s working? What can we do to better represent you? And a lot of times they say oh, it’s fine. But then you find out SAAVI lost funding for a therapist or there’s no parking overflow for when the game takes up parking and you have a stadium pass. Things that students should talk about but don’t and so I think it’s best to reach out proactively and do your best to gauge student opinion before that comes to you.

What is one improvement that you think USU needs? How do you plan to put action to it?

One thing I’d like to see us do more is just dialogue, it’s such a buzzword right, but more talking between people with different perspectives. I think we can benefit more by learning about each other, and I think that goes a lot of ways. I’d love to see more events that emphasize people from different political backgrounds talking, or learning more about some of the cool multicultural organizations going on, or talking about what excites people in different colleges. I think that’s one area where we’re not doing a bad job necessarily, but I think that more of that would benefit us. We’d learn more and I think we’d feel closer as a community if we did.

If you are not elected, how will you continue to be involved at USU?

I’ve been involved with the Government Relations Council for the last couple years, I think I’d try to still do it. There’s a lot of things that interest me. I’d love to be involved through my college, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Even if I’m not affiliated directly, I’d still love to keep working with legislators, talking to them about student needs. And the event committees are rad, I’d love to go back to the event committees now that I have the time and work on things like high stakes bingo.

What is your go-to date idea?

If you’re asking me about what works I’m probably the worst person you could ask. But I love anything that keeps our hands busy, I think. Oh man, all my answers are so convoluted, I never get straight to the chase. Picnic! Final answer!

-Maggie.Erekson@usu.edu