Niyonta Chowdhury-Magaña: USUSA president candidate interview
USUSA officers receive a significant amount of responsibilities and expectations from fellow students. How do you plan to effectively take on this new role while also being a student and having your own life responsibilities?
I feel like time management is of the essence no matter what you’re doing, and especially with such a demanding position like this, as a graduate student, as a PhD student, this is something I have to think about every day, right? And the reason, the way I’ve have been able to be so involved, is because I’m good at time management. Another thing I would say is that part of why I’m successful at having different conversations, effective different conversations with people and pushing for different initiatives that I’ve been doing this for the last three years since day one of starting at USU. And a lot of the work is just making the actual connections, knowing where to go. So yeah, I would say that has a lot to do with it. So that’s what makes it a little bit easier for me, as well, as a graduate student, I have far less classes, fewer classes than most undergraduate students. So that’s where also, I get a lot of time to work on policies and things that mean a lot to me, I plan to work in public policy afterwards. So, I’m using this opportunity as kind of like, a starting ground, like working in the community first before I go on to work for the country. I also wanted to say that as a psych student, I also do want to say that self care is super important. That it is important to be doing what you can do and want to do for your community. But also, please make time for yourself. Because if you don’t make time for yourself, you’re not going to be able to make time for other people and the things you actually want to do.
What makes you stand out from other candidates? Why should people vote for you?
Several reasons. So first of all, okay, so I’ll start with this. So, I work in the USUSA currently. So I have institutional knowledge of how things work, I have good relationships with different administration that you would need to work with to get these kinds of initiatives across. And also, before starting at USU, I had previous from before I started, I had four years of work experience. I was working as a coordinator, a research coordinator at Columbia University and the New York state psychiatric institute, where I was leading a huge group of people. So I have that kind of leadership experience where, again, that goes back to time management, managing my time, and also managing other people’s times, and getting the work done. Per, as a PhD student, I, as a psychology PhD student, because specifically, a lot of the work that I’m doing right now is actually related to academic work that I do. So they’re research based, and which is honestly that’s super important. And that’s something I say a lot that it’s really important that for whatever we’re pushing for, for that, for there to be data behind that and not just based on our feelings or whatever our own agendas are. Another thing I want to say is that I am the only candidate who has worked in – who is currently working in – the USUSA, the inclusion center, and Office of Global Engagement, the three branches of student government that we have at USU currently, and again, I have connections in all the all of these groups. I also have, I know what our needs are, when we talk about the needs of minoritized populations and DEI legislations and things like that. These aren’t just ideas I’m having that I want to implement, they are community based, they’re on based on the needs of the community. And I’m part of the community, and not just of the inclusion center, but also the US USA. So just having that kind of like being immersed in all these different cultures is really important.
If you are not elected, how will you continue to be involved at USU?
Well, I am currently the vice president of the biology student association, which I intend to continue being and elevating the voices of the voluntary population here. I’m also one of the cofounders of the graduate students of color Association. And I intend to continue being part of that group as well. And we have a lot of great work that’s coming out of that, that caters to, students’ needs in regards to professional development, community building, community healing and things like that. And I also plan to be involved in the Graduate Student Council, that would be under the current grad student senator, as well, I, my office doors are always open. I have an I say doors because I have multiple offices. And I always love talking to students about whether they need advice regarding writing up legislation, proposals, having conversations with different administrators, and how to get things done. So, I’m involved in those organizations. But I’m also available to just one on one, talk to people and give advice.
What is one improvement that you think USU needs? And how do you plan to put action to it?
Well, there are several things that I personally want to work on. But if I were to talk about, if I had to talk about, just one thing, I would say mental health. We have been in a mental health crisis since 2016, and now it’s 2022. It’s been a second, right. And we have one psychiatrist, and about 16 counselors for more than 17,000 students. And that comes out to be a ratio of 0.0003, which is basically zero. And you can see the consequences of that in our wait times. I have friends who wanted to see counselors last semester, and they just heard back last week. We all know how mental health crises work. And at that point, it’s your mental health crisis isn’t even relevant anymore. So, what I want to do is work on hiring at least one more counselor, and one more psychiatrist and my plan is to lobby the eight colleges that we have as well as student affairs to shoulder the cost of that. And the reason I’m going for that route is CAPPS is understaffed and underfunded. And that is also the response we usually get, that our hands are tight, we can’t really do anything. Now, the reason I went for colleges is because the College of Education was able to hire a new counselor last year. And this was also you know, we hit there, a lot of student input went into that, including input from myself and my counsel. I’m just really happy that we were able to do that. And that’s what I want to see come out of other colleges as well. And I’ve also had this conversation with several different administrators and have support in that this would be a good route of going about it.
Who is your celebrity crush?
My celebrity crush? Okay, so honestly, I don’t have a celebrity crush right now. But in the past, in the past when I was, I think 16, It used to be Jake Gyllenhaal. And I don’t know why but it was after watching Brokeback Mountain. Oh! I do have, I just remembered, so currently, I don’t know if you know her, Raveena Arora, she is a British South Asian musician and I love her music. You need to check her out if you don’t know her. She would definitely be in the top five of my current celebrity crushes if I have to think about celebrity crushes.
-Brock.Marchant@usu.edu