Meet the USUSA: Blake Allen Harms
Executive Vice President Blake Allen Harms has big dreams for himself and for the future of Utah State University.
Harms will be graduating in 2018 with a degree in communication studies and political science. He is currently applying to grad schools.
Harms’ goal is to be a researcher and a professor.
“So, I’ll get a PhD.,” Harms said. “I’ll be a professor of either interpersonal communication emphasizing in emotions and connecting those to research, or organizational communication.”
When Harms’ girlfriend, Eleanor Watson, said that Harms was funny, she wasn’t kidding. Harms focuses some of his research on humor and communication.
“(It’s) about connecting humor research to organizational research, and creating a way we can use humor effectively,” Harms said.
Outside of his research studies, Harms’ priority is helping students.
“In the big picture, he’s trying to use his position to help the students in any way he can,” Watson said. “He’s not looking to build his resume.”
When Harms was elected as the vice president, he promised five things to the students of USU: to include diversity training in orientation services, connect students to alumni within their majors, improve waitlist policies, improve organizational communication within USUSA, and increase real-world research experience.
So far, one of the goals Harms is implementing is diversity training in orientation services. He felt this action needed to be taken after his experience with the A-team.
“I felt that there was a need for the people on the A-team to be more aware of how we communicate with people who are minorities,” Harms said. “I thought there needed to be more conversations about how to interact with people in a respectful way.”
Brennan Summers, Harms’ campaign advisor, roomate and friend, has helped Harms throughout his campaign.
“Blake sees the world from a person’s perspective,” Summers said. “He will go one step further just to feel your pain.”
Summers described the campaign as an uphill battle, and believes they won the election as underdogs.
“Instead of standing at the top of the hill and preaching, ‘Vote for me!’, we would go to the bottom of the hill and help people stand up and walk to the top,” Summers said.
Even with his win as executive VP, Harms has a different perspective on success and has redefined success for himself.
“For a long time, I focused on outcomes, titles and accomplishing goals and those were my forms of success,” Harms said. “But I decided true, real success is not often measured. Real success is personal improvement.”
Harms said his best success in college was becoming more aware of his own emotions and developing emotional intelligence.
“Focusing on the process of things has been a really huge success for me,” Harms said.
Harms has now shifted his focus on the relationships with the people around him.
“That’s a measure of success, a really solid relationship,” he said.
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