What will your priorities be as an elected official?

As an elected official, my priority would be to represent the student constituency by actively seeking student input concerning all aspects of University governance. I want to assure maximum student participation and promote the rights of students above all else. I will prioritize the fair, open, and consistent development of policies, and provide creativity and support for both on and off campus student activities.

How does your leadership experience equip you to represent all graduate and professional students?

I am no stranger to student government and leadership opportunities. I swam in college and prioritized my team and our community atmosphere more than anything else. I ended up being chosen by both the men’s and women’s team to be the captain over both teams for the first time in our university’s history, and honestly I think I learned more about leadership that year than in any other position that I had held before in student government. The position of captain is given to athletes whom the rest of the team respect and trust to lead the team in the right direction. However, with that great honor also came great responsibility. As captain I was held accountable for bad performances and losses. I was expected to perform well at every meet and always be the anchor in leading my team to victory. As captain I was expected to maintain control in the most pressurized situations and be the model of excellence for my teammates. While I recognize that being President of GSS is a different role in and of itself, I know I can use those experiences and lead this team, our graduate school team, to victory.

How will you work with school administration to enact positive change for graduate and professional students?

As President of GSS I plan to work with school administration to review all Segregated University Fees and actively participate in the decision-making process involving all other fees which provide support for campus student activities. I know a lot of us are interested in better health insurance plans and deductibles too, and I would make that another top priority of mine.

How do you plan on communicating with all graduate and professional students?

I’m a social media manager- that’s what I do. With how the world is going these days and with all of the technology out there I think it’s silly to not utilize these platforms when most of us are scrolling through them anyways. I wouldn’t use this as the only method of communication of course, because I know not everyone enrolled in graduate school is active on these platforms, and so we’d also stay with traditional modes of communication that we’re using now. But I would like to amp up the social media usage and create creative campaigns online that would engage with all of us across the board and keep us updated in a more modern way.

If you are elected, what would be your solution to connect graduate students across the university?

Again, I may be a little biased with my career and the fact that I’m in the advertising program here at UT, but I definitely think social media can be utilized to connect students across the university. Personally, I think the multicultural club does a great job of connecting students together and I’d like to take notes from what they’ve done successfully and apply that to our own strategies of connecting students. I agree that I too felt a lack of cohesiveness in connecting students across all programs when I first got to UT. I was an out of state student who didn’t really feel connected into a program where most people are from the area or also went to UT for undergrad. And so I’d really like to implement more networking activities and events that aren’t exclusive to a specific program.

I think that’s all the questions for now, thanks for hearing me out and don’t forget to vote! I hope to talk to you all again soon 😊

What will your priorities be as an elected official?
My priorities are focus on first year graduate student who are not familiar with UTK system and they have lots of worries and concern. They maybe coming from other state or even other continent. For example, great portion of graduate student in Tickle collage of engineering are international student who may even can’t speak English well. I will try by the help of our senators, get connect and help them both academically and spiritually.

How does your leadership experience equip you to represent all graduate and professional students?
Since 2017 I have served as graduate research and teaching assistant and I’ve been mentor for young scholars and I have spent quite a noticeable time with graduate and undergraduate student. During this 3 year I’ve got quite familiar with our student concern and worries and I believe I can be a good representative for them.

How will you work with school administration to enact positive change for graduate and professional students?
Actually starting 2019 with the help of our senators we tried to push the university to increase the stipend and lower the fees for our graduate student. Getting better insurance for graduate student that also cover dental and vision expenses is definitely one of my priorities as vice president that I believe would be a positive change.

How do you plan on communicating with all graduate and professional students? 
I believe social media such as Facebook and Instagram are the best platforms for communication. I definitely will try to promote our social media and ask our graduate student to join us. For each GSS’s social media account I will ask one of our senators to keep the account alive and up to date and answer to the question you might ask through the GSS social media as quick as possible.

If you are elected, what would be your solution to connect graduate students across the university?
I believe connectivity and creating community is important especially for new students who are seeking community. So I will try to organize some fun event especially at the beginning of each semester to draw more and more new graduate student to event and connect them with other researchers and graduate students.