Meet the Candidates: Logan Vice President
Po’ Yamakoshi-Sing
My name is Po’ Yamakoshi-Sing. I’m an accounting major. I’m from Washington, Idaho, Hawaii, Japan — kind of all over the place. I’m an accounting major, and I’m a sophomore currently.
What do you hope to accomplish during your term as Logan vice president?
During my term during Logan vice president, my core objectives are kind of — it falls under my campaign SOUP: search, outreach, unite and promote. That’s kind of my core objectives. I know Aggie Blue is a big one of ours. That’s why I kind of want to focus on, kind of promoting more personal skills. Public speaking, for example, that’s a big one. I get nervous talking to people. A little bit more about what I want to do in the position as well is kind of bring back Mental Health Week. That’s kind of like in the serve aspect. I want to provide that in a bit, kind of promote more of the sustainability of that. I think mental health is a very big thing on our campus, for example. So that’s why I think that’s super important to our community itself. CAPS is overwhelmed with students in that, so I think kind of getting more access and network to that is super important. Unite is kind of what I want to do as well with that. I want to kind of focus more on the community. Utah State was not my first choice, but it’s become my first choice, and that’s why I want to represent it. It’s created a community here, and I want to develop that community further. That’s kind of why I’m passionate about this position now and why I’m currently running. It’s developed within me, and I want to kind of outreach that to all. I also kind of want to focus on clubs and organizations, kind of battle of the orgs almost. A lot of the underrepresentation is in clubs and orgs, and I think kind of that cross-collaboration will be — I used to be a wrestler, so I understand that nit and grit, that hustle for kind of the outreach to kind of be there, and I think Logan vice president is a great position for me to kind of help those students, especially in those athletes. Not even just athletes, but just like even organizations within itself. Kind of with promoting as well, I want to kind of promote kind of our service actions almost. That’s how I feel like in a way, it provides back. Us students are kind of focusing a lot on too much when we’re losing a lot. I feel like it’s a big issue of we have too much going on that we’re not focusing on the little things that are happening right now. We’re being stripped of a lot of power that we have now and a lot of power that we could have, and that’s kind of why I want to wrap it all up with united together in a way. We have so many different groups within our campus, but I feel like kind of helping all of us towards that is kind of the key point. So, Aggie Blue is my big one but overall, campus wellness.
Safety is one of the biggest topics for Logan VP. So, how would you go about making the Logan campus safer?
Yeah. I’m currently a resident assistant, so safety is a big thing in my role in that job. I think I can very transparently reflect that in my job at Logan vice president just because safety in general is our kind of well-being in a way. Mental health — I’m going to go back to what my objectives were. Providing safety on campus is a big important thing, and I think talking about it is also super important. It’s in a way where it’s a sensitive subject where people don’t feel comfortable. I feel like me providing that resource again with the Mental Health Week will really help support safety. We have a lot of workshops on that, and I think a big thing students don’t realize is how many resources we have, and I think gaining access towards those resources and networking that is super important. That’s why I kind of want to create cross-collaborations. I want to create kind of weeks of, like, ‘resource week’ almost, like, mental health. I think creating a safe environment myself is being safe myself. I know it’s a hard thing, but I would kind of create programs where it would help to do that.
If the university was given a million-dollar donation, and you were asked to decide what to do with the money, what would you put it towards?
I first would put it back towards us as students in general. I know that would be a little icky situation, but I think especially — I know it’s not in my objectives, but for example — student well-being. Transportation, for example, is a huge thing. Being off campus, it’s annoying. It sucks. Buses are full. I think focusing on students itself, first of all, is the most realistic thing I would do. Giving back to kind of, like, community development, where we don’t have enough funding and cultural resources. So, I focus more on the students itself, for example.
If you are not elected, how would you continue to be involved at USU?
I’m currently very involved itself right now. I’m overloaded — I think 17 credits. I’m in Traditions Committee. I am an RA. You know what I mean? I’m an alpha for business school. It’s just — I volunteer a lot with Atlantic United. I would continue to do that. I want to get more involved with the business school itself, with my degree itself. So, I don’t think it would ever change my involvement, my passion, because that’s who I am.
If you could write an opinion article for The Utah Statesman, what would it be on and why?
I focus more on students itself. I’m speaking from a personal perspective, but an opinion I would write on is with kind of the regulations we’ve been stripped of right now, it’s like ‘Why?’ My opinion would be ‘Why.’ Why are we doing this to students when we’re supposed to be providing resources to students, we’re supposed to be encouraging students to educate ourselves and we’re going to college for a reason? It’d be a big reason — why are you stripping us from these opportunities? Why are you making it harder to go to college? Why are you making it harder to educate ourselves? That would be a big reason of ‘Why.’
And then just going off of that, you would ask the question ‘Why.’ Could you kind of sum that up? Like, what, who you’re saying that to? What exactly you think needs to change?
I would talk to legislation big time. If we had that access to reach them and kind of encourage them at all, even just like a statement post, it’s not really outreach to students enough. But I would ask the reason. Like, for example, you guys are probably asking why I’m even running for this. You know what I mean? It’s like, it’s what is the passion? Why are we encouraged to go to school? You know what I mean? I know ‘Why’ is a very big broad question, and it’s a question where I believe, for example, even with housing, they’re undergoing an icky situation right now with policy and like, who can be an RA or currently who is a resident assistant, who cannot be. It’s how does that impact you? You know what I mean? Let’s look, what impacts us? If we’re here to go to college, for one reason, one reason only, then why make that harder than it needs to be? I think there’s so many resources that are being provided but also being stripped from us. And I think that’s my why. It’s why do we do the things we do, but why is it so hard to do that if that makes sense. I know that can be a very open-ended question, but I kind of want to leave that up to you guys and myself. I’m very passionate about that.
Madison Scholz
Hello, my name is Madison Scholz. I am running for Logan Campus VP. I am majoring in accounting, and I am from Ashburn, Virgina.
What do you hope to accomplish during your term as Logan VP?
I’m hoping to accomplish amplifying student voices as we have new administrators coming in with the new university president. We hope that we can still amplify student voices to this new administration and to make sure student concerns are being addressed to administration. I’m hoping to advocate to administration to let certain parking lots be free after 5 p.m. As students, we are involved in different meetings and things on campus, and we should be allowed to have free parking when it’s just outside of normal business hours.
Safety is one of the biggest topics for Logan VP. How would you go about making the Logan campus safer?
Yeah, so when we do a safety walk across campus to check buildings and the Logan campus in general to see if there’s any safety concerns, I want to make sure we also do this walk at night to make sure there’s adequate lighting throughout all of campus. I would hate for a student to feel unsafe walking across campus at night, just because there’s areas of a campus that are darker than others that might make students feel more fearful.
If the university was given a million-dollar donation, and you were asked to decide what to do with the money, what would you put it towards?
I think I would put the money towards student programs. We have awesome resources here already at the university, but some organizations and clubs are getting money redacted because of new policies in the Utah Legislature, and so I would want to make sure that the resources to students that affect the most are well funded. Things like CAPS — CAPS is such an amazing resource for students on this campus for their mental health, and I know that they’ve been struggling to have enough staff to adequately handle the demand for their services. So, I’d want to fund more things like that, the SAAVI office and SNAC to make sure that those resources, while they’re already great, could use more funding to be even better.
If you are not elected, how will you continue to be involved at USU?
I love Utah State so much, and even if I’m not elected, I would still want to apply to be an Aggie Blue Leadership facilitator because that’s one of my favorite weeks of the year. I still would want to be involved in different clubs and organizations throughout the Utah State campus. I’ve done that since my freshman year, and even if I’m not elected, I would still continue to be involved.
If you could write an opinion article for The Utah Statesman, what would it be on and why?
The first idea that came to my mind — I am involved in Greek life here on this campus, and I think it gets a negative connotation to it, yet a lot of the members of the Greek life community are very passionate about philanthropy and leadership and growth and development. So, I think I would want to highlight the positives of this organization just because I think there’s a bunch of stereotypes that maybe paint Greek life not in the greatest light, yet as a leader in Greek life community, I’ve been involved in raising thousands of dollars for organizations like CAPS and SAAVI that raise money for survivors of domestic violence, and I don’t think most people on campus would even know that so many Greek organizations are raising thousands of dollars for philanthropy organizations that we’re really passionate about.
Matthew Peters
The Utah Statesman reached out to Matthew Peters for interview, and he failed to respond.