New Statesman column to highlight campus community embodying Aggies Think, Care, Act
Interested in hearing about outstanding students? The Utah Statesman is collaborating with Aggies Think, Care, Act to create a new column dedicated to featuring nominated Aggies.
Aggies Think, Care, Act is an initiative designed to help students get support and respect from their campus.
Katie Freeman, a supportive measures specialist with the Office of Equity, is one of the co-chairs of Aggies Think, Care, Act.
“Our overall goal is to promote this kind of culture of caring that upholds our principles of community,” Freeman said. “We try to identify needs and see if we need to give them to a certain office on campus that already exists. If there is a gap, we see if it’s something we can do or if someone else needs to fill that.”
The other co-chair is Karma Black, the assistant director of the Disability Resource Center. The two became co-chairs last summer.
The initiative works with other organizations on campus to form the Aggies Think, Care, Act committee. The purpose of the committee is to ensure they are all upholding the same standards of respect, social responsibility and human dignity.
“We are composed of staff and faculty and a little bit of students,” Black said. “We help each group on the committee to do some informal review of what they’re doing to make sure that we are adhering to those principles of community and that we are thinking, caring and acting in all that we do.”
Abraham Rodriguez, USUSA student body president, takes part on the committee as a student representative and for the Student Involvement and Leadership Center.
“We get together to learn how we can not only support each other in our endeavors, but really the whole goal of how we are embracing civic responsibility, and fostering a caring community that elevates the experience for all Aggies,” Rodriguez said.
According to Freeman, working as a co-chair has given her the opportunity to see progress in the campus community.
“I like my job because it’s very tangible,” Freeman said. “I like connecting with people all across campus who are interested in making progress and being able to have that long term vision for it.”
Rodriguez said this year, he has been passionate about Aggie stories.
The idea comes from Aggie Heroes, which was an event founded by the student body president in 2017, Michael Scott Peters.
“I used to be on a subcommittee, and we spotlighted Aggie Heroes,” Black said. “We’d want to celebrate them, but those attempts were annual events, and they weren’t super well-attended.”
According to Rodriguez, Aggie Heroes stopped in 2020, and after an attempt to bring it back last year, he started thinking about how to showcase students without making an event they would be unable to attend.
“We thought, ‘well, with the technology that we have nowadays and the way that we connect with one another, why not create a digital space where we can advertise nominating others that they feel exemplified standards,’” Rodriguez said.
A way to increase the amount of Aggies spotlighted in an accessible way is the collaboration between the Utah Statesman and the initiative. This will be shown as a new column in the paper as well as the digital edition of the Statesman.
Members of the committee are excited about the idea of a more regular spotlight that can showcase multiple students, so more voices are out there in a more accessible way.
“I think if there’s some kind of regular story, a reminder to think, care and act, those stories would inspire people to uphold those principles of community,” Black said. “It also provides a great representation for people.”
Another aspect of the digitization of Aggie stories is taking the Aggies Think, Care, Act pledge.
“The pledge is to learn more about the principles of community and make a pledge to do something to better our community,” Black said. “I think everyone has it within them to do something, and if we all do something, we’re going to feel more connected.”
Aggies Think, Care, Act is brainstorming ideas to possibly have more students on the committee in the future.
To get more involved with Aggies Think, Care, Act, information can be found at usu.edu/think-care-act/.
To sign the pledge and to nominate outstanding students, visit usu.edu/think-care-act/principles-of-community.
“It’s always surprised me how much I get back from just giving into my community more so than when I’ve just focused on myself and my own goals,” Freeman said. “It’s so heartwarming when people are doing the best they can.”