Akheem Mitchell
But overall, I realized that even though there is that pressure, pressure makes diamonds, and regardless, like you just gotta get it done. And who cares if a person says like, oh, he only won because he’s black, or he’s, or he’s only pushing like different things for a certain part of the community or, or he’s not good enough. As long as I know myself that what I’m doing is important, and it’s going to help benefit the community at hand. And I know genuinely, that I’m listening to listening to the people that I’m serving, and doing the things that they’re asking me to do, or wanting to see on campus, that now that’s all that matters. As long as you continue to let outside voices dictate your path, you’ll never find a true path that’s for you.

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs now, I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today we’re discussing the experiences of student body presidents. We have two folks joining us today who have taken on these roles at very different institutions. And I’m really excited to learn from both of you. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and an online learning community for 1000s of us who work in longside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays find details about this episode, or browse our archives. It’s studentaffairsnow.com. Today’s episode is sponsored by Symplicity. A true partner Symplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards. My pronouns are he him his I’m a speaker, consultant and coach, and you can find out more about me at keithedwards.com. I’m broadcasting from Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of the Dakota in the Ojibwe peoples. I’m so excited to have both of you here today. Let’s, let’s meet both of you and learn a little bit about your role as a student body president. Jermaine, let’s start with you.

Jermaine Turner
Well, thanks for having me. First off, Keith today I’m excited to be on the podcast. My name is Jermaine Turner, I go by JT usually on campus, so people know me by but I’m a senior Integrative Studies major on the pre law track graduating this May literally for weeks, I’m very excited. And I’m kind of at the inroads of being student body president. But a little bit about me, I’m from Dallas, Texas, which I consider the greatest city in the mankind. Yes, I am a Dallas Cowboys fan before you know anybody probably asks or whatever. So I am a Dallas Cowboys fan. I’m gonna stick beside them, I love my city. I grew up in a suburb a little bit of outside from Dallas. And from there, I graduated from dokubo High School, I talked about my high school experience and my my experience K through 12, just because that is where a lot of my family really poured into me. And not only that, but also teachers, my church community that really built up the man that I will become and prepared me for college and in high school, I was in Student Council, I was a student athlete. So I was pretty involved there as well. And then that just kind of translated into college. When I got to the University of Texas in fall 2019. I was very optimistic about the school, a UNT was not on my top five list at all. It just so happened that they were the school that was going to pay me to go to school and my grandmother wasn’t a lump. So that kind of just made sense to go at that point. And so I came to the University very optimistic, not sure what to expect. And from there, that experience translated into me being so involved on campus from many different roles and having different jobs before I became Student Body President like being the Black Student Union president, I was an orientation leader, worked in housing as a resident assistant for the martial eagle and learning community what’s an LLC, dedicated for black men for black men retention within their first year, because we know black men make up about 3% of our campus, but you have the highest number of non-retention rate. So that program really helped us with academics and just staying focused and having that type of community. And so after doing all those experience in about the end of my junior year, it just came to terms of like, you know, I’ve been a part of the Student Government for all these years done these multiple leadership experiences working these multiple jobs. So I asked them Alia shallow, who was a good friend of mine, we had also went to the same high school ductable High School as well together. And then we decided to run to build campus that was more reflective of what we thought the actual needs of students were. So this year, we’ve been able to bring in a very transfer motional experience our student government, we’ve increased our membership, we’ve been able to secure a finally secure a wage increase for all student workers on campus, but then also pushed our president to look at, you know, having a livable wage for everybody, including staff and faculty on campus as well. And he’s made a commitment to that we relocated our condom machine to have a safer location for students to be able to get those, you know, the condoms or loops and be in privacy instead of adding the pope public. And it also made a very transparent SGA this year with our different programs and events, hosting more programs and events than any other administration has did in the last 10 years. And we just finished up our elections. And we know that that vote count is the highest increase we’ve seen since COVID. So I think that what we’ve done this year has worked and that’s just kind of a little bit about me and my experience so far.

Keith Edwards
That’s awesome. Thanks for that JT and I came tell us a little bit about you. I saw you smiling and nodding along probably see similarities and some differences.

Akheem Mitchell
No, I think, JT, whichever, whichever way you prefer. I think that you’re amazing. Just hearing everything that you’re getting right now. I mean, you Go off like today. But thank you so much for having me today, Keith. Hello, everyone. My name is Akheem Mitchell. I am a senior here at Rollins College majoring in political science with double majoring in political science and philosophy with minors in African American Studies, and ethics. I currently serve as the student government association president, a little bit about me, I come from a neighborhood called Central Park, Florida is in, it’s in Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. It’s a small, low economic area filled with majority of African American people. And so coming from that community, I really kind of, they kind of pushed me to keep going for more, it kind of pushed me to just do that all of that can just because come from that community, and going to a middle and high school outside of the neighborhood. So I started elementary school off and Turtle Park Elementary School, which is an elementary school outside of neighborhood, and then I moved on to go to predominately white neighborhood, middle and high schools. And so going there, just kind of see kind of seeing the difference between either whether it be the education that was provided as far as like resources, or just opportunities that were given, or just seeing the different ways that certain black students were treated because of where we come from, or just because of our race, it kind of put like a, in a way, how do I say this? It tried to diminish my life, or diminish our life, or try to keep us inside of this box of us not being able to really reach for or really obtain different attributes or skills or just goals in our life just because of where we come from and what we look like. So coming to Rollins, I kind of had that mindset already in middle school, I was the Student Government Association, or was it was costing the council, Student Council, student body president. And then but because of my experience in that atmosphere, just because once again, of all the hardships and things that we had to go through at that time, I stopped doing it in high school until my senior year when one of our one of the one of the advisors reached out to me and said, they really think I should be a part of it. And being a part of it again, that senior really kind of lit a spark back into me when it allowed me to want to be a part of this a little bit more. So once I got to Rollins College, I was already I was like, You know what I’m gonna do SGA I’m gonna get super involved, you know, I’m gonna make this difference just because Rollins is another predominant institution. And we’re a small liberal arts school. So for us the amount of students it might, at that time, I believe we had about 6% of our students were black, or like six or seven, six, or 7%. And because we’re a smaller school, that only means about maybe like 60 to 70 other black students. So just seeing that disparity there, I really wanted to kind of be an advocate and be a representative that allows for our black students to have a voice within a sense. So when I started my freshman year, I immediately once again, got involved in SGA. Then I also got involved inside of our Black Student Union, along with our ward hall council. So Ward Hall is one of the dormitories on campus. And so I started on the hall council and I was a social justice chair, and then became vice president. But that’s because of some I got kicked out. But I was a social justice chair. And during that time period, I had events called woke Wednesdays we came where I would put on a movie. So one event, one movie, specifically that we put on was the hate you give. And so during that movie of during that time, or that event, we’re moving into afterwards, the residence hall, we will have a discussion afterwards about what the movie means and how we can apply it to our real life. And how do we see what’s happening in the movie happening at Rollins? And how can we do? How can we do better as a wellness community in order to make this a space where our all of our marginalized students feel welcome. So they’re moving on my experience with an SGA. At first, within those first couple of years, it kind of pushed me to want to do more in SGA, just because me myself, I was probably one out of four members that were black in SGA. And so during that time period, it was a little bit harder, because you can definitely tell that even with some of the people who are on the different executive boards, or in positions of leadership, that there was a disconnect, or between the way some of us are treated versus some of them and I won’t get too much into that. But having having seen all of that it kind of pushed me and encouraged me to want to do more and do better just because I know that I had the mindset of if not me, then who? So I went and I went after that. So then my junior year I became the student body vice president. So last year, I was sitting by the Vice President, and the person I ran ran along with we ran on wanting to help create a better Rollins community for just for all students but specifically for minority students for their voices to be heard. And from that experience last year, seeing seeing what it did for our minority students to see a person that looks like me in that position, kind of pushed me to want to take that next step. And so I then ran against the current president after what the president at that time, ran against him along with my running mate, her name is Sidney sage, or when I say she is the most phenomenal person you’ll ever meet. I mean, she is an amazing vice president and even vice president, she’s an amazing partner. So you go through this, to go through go through this whole thing with and so we ran. And what we ran out were three topics, we owe three goals. Basically, it was community rebuilding, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and then mental health, mental health awareness and advocacy. And so, for community rebuilding, seeing how when we came back from COVID, a lot of people in the Ross community was kind of disconnected within a sense, we didn’t really have not to say that Oldfield, but we were behind the screen for so long that we weren’t able to truly make those genuine, genuine relationships with one another. So wanting to be bring that community since back surrounds and wanting to bring more more events, more students out and getting more students engaged with the actual Ross community. And then for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. We currently Rollins is going underneath a strategic plan underneath that topic. And so I sit on the steering committee for that, for that strategic plan, and so utilizing not only just that plan, but also getting more cultural ORS involved in allowing for more minority students to feel welcome accepted at the school was one of our big goals, and utilizing like, the different things that are happening or what’s happening with Yeah, what’s happening underneath issues, did you plan so right now SGA, myself and Cindy, along with some of our other senators, we helped push the intercultural competency here at Rollins. So getting on making it a requirement or like yeah, a requirement priority to have our students take a course that teaches them more about like more about the within a sense. And then also getting having more spaces for our athletes or athletes right now. They’re specifically our black athletes, we are sending out have one on one conversations with them every now and then. And they’ll express to us some of the hardships that they’re going through. So we’ve made a space for them called we call it our black tabletop. But so we made a space for them to just come together and really talk about their experiences, and then allowing for allowing for that conversation to be brought up to their athletic director and the athletic directors or boss or whoever supervises them, just to bring that transparency and show that things need to be changed. And then lastly, mental health awareness and advocacy, just working with our Wellness Center to get those resources out to students who are dealing with mental health issues, or who are suffering right now. I don’t know where to go. So overall, those that is what we ran on. And then by us winning that election, we became the first black administration ever at Rollins. And then I became the first black student body vice president SDMI, the President and then send me what’s the first black student, black woman’s student body vice president.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. I’m hearing themes from both of you about sort of centering your identity, seeing the challenges that you’re facing, and really challenges other folks are facing, and then wanting to do something about that, sort of for you, but also a longer legacy for so that others don’t face some of these challenges. So it’s a little bit easier for others and sort of, but sort of beginning with sort of noticing your experience and then really wanting to contribute and pass that on. And then also, I hear from both of you, it’s just a real commitment from the very beginning of I’m going to be involved. I’m not really sure what that’s going to be. And it sounds like for both of you, it kind of emerged into the Student Government about really for you saying, you know, from the very beginning, I’m going to be involved. I’ll figure out what that is, and sort of what’s going to emerge from there. You both talked a lot about the issues and topics that you’re you’re focused on and that you’re running on, and you’re beginning to engage with. But I also wanted to chat with you a little bit about a little bit more personal experience. What did you experience? What what is your face? What were the challenges that you were taking on? And really, what did you learn about yourself through this experience? So a little bit more personal? What did you learn about yourself through that experience? Akheem, let’s start with you. What were some of the challenges that you faced? And what did you learn about yourself?

Akheem Mitchell
Um, so I’ll do one. So I’ll break it up into one more like, administrative wise and then one personal, sort of wise, a challenge that we faced was kind of getting people to change their mindsets, and not just not just our administration, but also our students, specifically for our administration or environmental raishin. I don’t just mean like the president and his cabinet, I just mean administer You’re just overall, getting them to change your mindset or not just do the same thing that’s always been done just because it’s always been done. I feel like right now, or it doesn’t just apply to Rollins, current society society. A lot of times when people bring up change or want to do something different, is viewed as No, or let’s not do that, because this is what’s been done already. But when we do that, we limit the possibilities of increasing or growing a certain program or growing up with some of our missions here. Right now, Ron stands well, Ross was founded on the ideas or the values of global citizenship and responsible leadership. And so being that Cindy and I were coming in here with these broad, big ideas, it was sometimes challenging just to get certain people here on campus to kind of see what we were going with it or just really, truly believe in it. But after a while, after a while, we were able to like get them to overall comment to see where we’re going by just getting them to it. Since I trust this, it gives us that space to do what we need to do in order to help progress his campus community. And then on a more personal level, one of the biggest challenges that I faced was kind of just having confidence in myself within the sense. So being that I was the first black president why I am the first black president, and was the first black student body vice president, there were different things as far as like, certain stereotypes that surround like black identities, or like just bought people within positions of power. And so having said that, there was a lot of pressure of me feeling like I need, I need to do this, or like, I have to make this difference. Or I have to do something in order to show that I was here or like leave a mark. Because if not, then people say I didn’t do anything. And I just and I just wanted because I was blocked. But overall, that kind of like that kind of default, my first that kind of stuff on my, my work and the things that I wanted to do, just because I was consistently in my head and overthinking about every little thing. But overall, I realized that even though there is that pressure, pressure makes diamonds, and regardless, like you just gotta get it done. And who cares if a person says like, oh, he only won because he’s black, or he’s, or he’s only pushing like different things for a certain part of the community or, or he’s not good enough. As long as I know myself that what I’m doing is important, and it’s going to help benefit the community at hand. And I know genuinely, that I’m listening to listening to the people that I’m serving, and doing the things that they’re asking me to do, or wanting to see on campus, that now that’s all that matters. As long as you continue to let outside voices dictate your path, you’ll never find a true path that’s for you. So that was my challenges. But overall, I did pretty good at overcoming.

Keith Edwards
That’s great. Yeah, learning to handle sort of the those inner voices in our head that informed by sort of all the messages and stereotypes and expectations and learning to navigate that I think that’s, that’s great. It’s a great learning for all of us. JT, what were some of the challenges you faced? And what did you learn through this experience? What does it offer to you?

Jermaine Turner
Yeah, and first of all, said, he was gonna say, you know, you’re good enough, I think sometimes it’s very hard for us as, as black student leaders as black as black men and black student leaders on campuses, leading institutions that, you know, might not reflect us personally in the majority. So, I do want to say that I congrats on everything in your institution. Um, so a little bit of background about the University of North Texas specifically, we are a minority serving institution, which means the majority of our population is majority minority students, we also are Hispanic serving institution. So that goes to a we do have a very large Hispanic population that we serve as well. Over 61% of our students are first gen and then over 83% of our students identify as left leaning or Democrat, and a very rich state. So I’m just given this prefix to let you know, come the student body that I’m serving. Um, so I’ll speak I guess I’ll do what I can do as far as the personal and then just being in the role, the challenges that I face. First, I think I’ll talk about the administration. And I’ll go into the personal I think administrative was some of the challenges that I think me and Ilya face was our think, you know, our admin, our school administration was used to SGA leaders who kind of just went with the go on so they sometimes did the roll, they will follow all the rules, they would just kind of go about their year, not really disturbing anything necessarily, but they would just kind of be like figuring it, so we’ll invite you to come vacation and the university days and graduations and it’s kind of like a puppet and then kind of SGA does what they do, but it doesn’t really impact student was more so focused on the internal SGA, which is, you know, our Senate, our judicial branch, the executive board. Our intern program refers to your counsel, you know, they’re just very internal. So wanting them Eliot Chang was being external emphasis on external, with our programs that we did this year with our advanced program more than anybody’s program in the last 10 years, according to OrgSync in our files and what we know, and we spent a good chunk of our budget this year on programming and events and engaging with students, because we know if we engage with students, that’s how you probably are able to serve your student body at least is what we believe. Because when you’re serving, and coming to your events and programs, they’re able to tell you, you know, more personally, what’s going on, you know, the classroom, what’s going on outside of the classroom, what challenges are they seeing that they’re faced, and from there, it helped us really gained striction, to what we want to focus on. And one of those things was career readiness, we realized that a lot of people will graduate from our university, not have a job not have an internship. And we thought, well, whose fault is that? Is it on the school? Is it the curriculum not doing that part? Or is it the students not being able to kind of be self sufficient and average? Like, who’s the thought? And we just thought, well, you know, listen, by me there, one, let’s just bridge the gap, you know, as SGA should do. And so from there, we created this long week of events that focused on career readiness from an alumni panel, we did a employers dinner that was sponsored by enterprise, where we brought in career coaches from each college to be there, we invited some employers to be there, and this dinner had over 150 guests. And the guest list was supposed to be like, I think 230, but we have to cut it to 150. So that let us know that we’re on part on track. And I use that example. Because that was one where, in the beginning, were a little bit hesitant, like, is this a good idea? Should we do it, but once we got involved with the Career Center, the communication was so great with the director, she was very responsive. I mean, we still have a great relationship to this day, because she was so responsive, and she wanted to help students, and then that engages us in and we’re really well. And not only that, but also with the $15 minimum wage since we tried to increase it to right, um, as you had advocated for that for years, but it kind of dwindled down because, you know, they weren’t, I don’t know if it’s the four administration’s weren’t pushing hard enough. But I think the difference between us in me and Alia, was that meeting and originally told us No. They originally told us no, we went back and said, Okay, well, if you tell us no, we’ll go to the CFO. And this is talking to the university president. Like, if you’re gonna tell us no, we’ll find another alternative option. And so because the CFO and CFO is like, okay, let’s run the numbers. And he’s like, Okay, well, we can’t push to 15. But we can push to $8. And then in the next year, I can push you guys to nine, and we’ll create a plan a pipeline to get us to 15. And then that end up working out. So I think the biggest challenge was an admin, so I was getting people to buy in getting people to realize, no, we’re not going to take no for an answer. And this administration is gonna push for substantial change that can last past our years of being a student government. I think, for me personally, the challenge came with being black. And in this role, I mean, wow. I mean, the anti blackness is been shown and display time and time again. Um, and whether that’s from students, whether it’s from, you know, an admin or just other people, it just really, really showed, I think, if I was merely always joking, say, if we were in the lives of a black woman, if we were to white men disposition, people wouldn’t question Will we do people will not think twice about what we’re doing. But because we’re producing great work that leads to people questioning and wondering and things. And I think, at the end of this year, I just realized, like, wow, we are making an impact and a change because we see the results, but then that leaves a lot of people to question you and to wonder. And it was just recently we were questioned about our budget. And we’re like we’re making we’ve been as transparent as possible about our budget. And it’s like, we show the list, we showed it to the party that was asking for we’d like here’s the expenditure list. Keep in mind, we can’t make any purchases without approval from the school, right? So it has to go to the school first before we purchased anything. And that moment in that lesson taught me that no matter how many goals you accomplished, no matter what you do, sometimes as a black person in these roles, there’s like a king kind of hinted at earlier, there’s a level of expectation that you must be perfect that you must go above and beyond that you must work hard. And you know, as I reflect back on, you know, former presidents that we had them just like they would never do this amount of programming this amount of work, this amount of advocating this amount of outreach to the student body. You know, we had over 33 people run for Senate this past election term, which shows that people are interested in that they want to run and we also have two presidential tickets. So it shows that our work is being seen and people want to be involved. Had this been past years. I’m not sure if that would have been accurate. I think last year, we had 15 senators the year before, it was like only 13. So the fact that we’ve doubled almost what our Senate expectation is for next year, the fact that we have increased our student engagement with students and actually made progress in changes that if a student asked me today, what a student government done for us, I can say we’ve done this, this and this for you. Um, so yeah, those are kind of The challenges that I face.

Keith Edwards
Great. We’re going to kind of pause here a little bit. We’ve got Jael here, who’s going to come in and join us. There you are.

So Jael, go ahead and tell us a little bit about you.

Jael Kerandi
Hi, so happy to be here. So my name is Jael Kerandi. And I attended the University of Minnesota and graduated in the spring of 2021. And I served as a student body president, and during my junior year, so kind of leading up to that journey through our SGA started as a first year intern in the program, and then progressed to then serve with our Board of Regents. And so that was a role that represented our system. And 500,000 students at the time, inclusive of kind of professional students, master students, and also our undergraduate students. During that time, I then ran actually to be Vice President and our, our campaigns are done through tickets and schools I know are different, but we did them through a ticket. And at the time, ran, we were successful on the ticket, a very contentious, um, kind of campaign season, as I’m sure many understand the feeling of that. And then midway through my term, our president actually resigned. And I immediately assumed the presidency. When we were voted into office at the time I was based on how much history we had the first black vice president and then assumed the first black student body president, and finished out my term that July. After that, I actually returned back to serve for the Board of Regents and then finished up my collegiate career.

Keith Edwards
And, you know, we’ve heard from JT and Akheem a little bit about some of their experience, but you’re not in it. You have graduated, you have moved on. So maybe I’d love to hear from you. As you look back on this experience, what do you see the maybe not necessarily the role, but the leadership experiences, the challenges you faced? What does it taught you? What does it offer you? What What now, as you’re looking back on it, do you think this is really what I gained from that experience?

Jael Kerandi
Yeah, I mean, I think the higher education system is something that many people don’t understand unless you’re in the middle of it. And especially for a student coming in to advocate I mean, going from if you were in high school, on Student Council, or something to understanding the leverage you have as representative of students is a different jump. But more than that, I think you understand first, you have to understand the system that is your university, whether how the president works, how the committees work, and that in itself can often be a barrier, because it’s so large, and there’s a lot to learn in such a quick time to be effective. And so I think understanding systems quickly, and then we’re the leaders and decision makers are super key. And that translated, and that’s going to translate anywhere, right, understanding who the decision makers are. And then I think the next part of that is really learning how my, I would say my strategy with advocating with different leaders was always different. Because you have to understand how that office operates and what they’re, what they’re willing to do, but also what goes as far so I think it was always a matter of how do you lead for these different things. And really, while you’re the student body president, you’re really just an advocate like I like that is your job. You are the champion of students and at the end of the day, my Job was solely responsible for students like my job was not trained administrator, my job was not to the state, despite being a public land grant institution, my job was to advocate for students as hard as I could. And despite and above all, that, that was what I was going to do. Anytime I sat in the meeting with the President, it was always five, whatever 1000 students who wanted they’re sitting right next to me, or X amount of students who wanted to sitting right next to me never sat in those rooms alone. So I think it’s definitely dependent on that. And the last thing is, we have such our student governments are built of leaders, right, like, everyone is a leader, everyone is an advocate, and really learning how to depend on each other. I think the job of the student body president could often be overlooked for how many, it feels like a second full time job 100%. And it is, and I think really learning how to depend on those around you who are supportive, and they’re advocates as well is so important. And to this day, I still have so many conversations with the stuff that I had the opportunity to lead. And the individuals that I worked with.

Keith Edwards
So the three lessons I heard was how systems work and learning to understand them to navigate them. Really personalizing your approach with different units or different people, and then leaning on the people around you and not having feeling like you have to do all this. Are those things that are still serving you now?

Jael Kerandi
Oh, 100%. I mean, really learning how to find your why and what you’re doing. Because once you figure out why you’re doing what you’re doing, everything else follows into questions. Like I said, finding those decision makers makes a lot of sense, knowing how to strategize and be thoughtful about your approach. And then leaning on those around you. I mean, that that’s going to happen in any organization, you have the opportunity to lead.

Keith Edwards
No, great, great. JT, we’ll go back to you. And I kind of want to smush these two questions together, just so we have enough time but love to ask each of you. For for students who might be listening to this who are thinking about running, are contemplating that choice. What, what would, what advice would you give them? Or maybe what advice would you give that version of you right now, knowing what you know, now? And then many of our listeners or student affairs, professionals who are working with student body presidents, what would you want them to know? So that they can best support these leaders in their role. So we’ll go to JT, Akheem, and then Jael.

Jermaine Turner
Alright, and I just want to say, John, thanks for Oh, really bringing that understanding the system into play into this conversation, and that I hit up. So my first point as far as what I would tell an administrator, and then what I would tell a student that’s interested in this to the administrator, I would tell you to support the students. I think that that is very important and valuable to remember, I believe every higher education professional, you should have gained entry into this by at least on some solid ground wanting to help students and I think we find a lot of administrators who have done this for their own ego, or who have done this just because they make six figures a year to kind of sit and really sometimes do nothing or sit and protect the university. So that’s what I would encourage the administrator to do is just remember that that student is there for a short amount of time. And that student needs you. It’s nothing. I’m so grateful. That is one thing. I’ll be very grateful. And I will toot my university’s horn, it is our Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. With our president and, my advisor Christa Koffee, and I’m going to miss them people. But Josh, in the multicultural center like that I have a village of support from administrators who empower us every day to know that any goal is possible. Anything that you put your mind to can be set forward any goal you have, and that empowerment has led to a successful student government year, none of the goals that we’ve accomplished from our platform, I think we just checked two weeks ago, we’ve completed 85% of our platform, that wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our administrators. So that’s what I would tell them illustrative support these students have their back. And when it comes to a crossroad, you really have to decide, you know, do you protect the university? Or are you going to really look after students or just find a good balance in between? Because when you do understand the systems in these structures, you understand that, especially specifically public institutions in Texas, I go to a public institution, or ran kind of by the governor, I love to be very transparent with him say the governor runs the university, not the president, because the governor is the person responsible for appointing the Board of Regents to put a Regents appoints the chancellor, Chancellor to the president, President to the VPs and that directly impacts you so that’s kind of how the system works. And when you understand that it’s very easy to kind of comprehend that so that’s what I was saying to admin protect students really have their back cycling so a student that’s interested in running I will say figure out why. And don’t run for the title. I promise you it is not worth it. It’s not worth it just standing up saying I’m student body president because when you have those

Keith Edwards
Looking at everyone nodding their heads, that

Jermaine Turner
people don’t understand the life, I have so much respect for anybody that I meet that this student government in general, because that leadership is a hard sometimes burden to have. Because when you’re in these rooms, especially if you’re the president, sometimes you might be the only person in the room advocating for students, I was just on a search committee for three weeks, and the only student on that search committee, but hiring a very important role to university. So I’m ensuring not only that I’m bringing identity to the table, but so many other identities that weren’t at that table, I have to ensure I’m kind of speaking up for and being a voice for but not overshadowing them are telling wrong information and make sure I’m speaking to the fact that I fillings. So I’m, what I’m saying to the student is don’t do it for just the title, make sure you know why you want to do it. And make sure you bring your village with you that is so important. I’m so blessed to have ran with somebody that was my friend that knew me for over a minute, we have known each other for over seven years, right? And like we went to the same high school and came here, but I say that to say, when you have that sense of support, anything is possible when you have community, so make sure that you have a community and just don’t do it for the title.

Keith Edwards
So yeah, that’s great. Great. Akheem what what advice would you have for that version of you that was contemplating this? And what advice would you have for student affairs folks, and how they can support.

Akheem Mitchell
So I just want to say JT, I mean, you hit on the nail, you kind of I was gonna say kind of near exactly what you’re saying. So I’m gonna split it up as well for but for Student Affairs, just really, along with that support, encourage your students to want to do more, don’t just stifle them or keep them aside of one specific box that you want them to be in just to Innocence please the college. For us, it’s kind of different. So Rollins is a small liberal arts institution. So we, so we don’t and it’s private. So we don’t really follow directly what the state or the governor says we have our own like Board of Trustees who approve everything that happens at the college along with like the president and his cabinet. But don’t just have your students doing something or just be like you said, kind of that show person to say, oh, like they’re doing so many good things. But the good things that they’re doing is only because it’s only the agenda that you want them to push, allow them to have kind of what I said earlier, allow them to help try to push their own things or help grow the institution in ways that they see best because sometimes these administrators they some of them might have gone to Rollins for like or years in the past but and they want to have that same Rollins that they had before. But that same Rollins is not what students want today, students today want the rawness that you are showing them in your catalog when you’re browsing or when you’re advertising it to them. As soon as I want to help to help how I want to help just updated college. And I don’t even think that’s just students at Rollins, just students in general, people want to keep progressing, people want to keep growing. But when you hinder and you stifle that growth, then you just create more like discomfort and more tension and animosity within our own community. So don’t stifle that growth. encourage your students to want and want to do better and encourage them to do more. And like kind of like what do you JT said, um, thankfully, Cindy and I are with our administration, we our Vice President of Student Affairs, her name was Donna Lee. But I say that lady don’t play that does not play she writes for us. She She always speaks for the students She always thinks about, she always thinks of us first. And I think that’s one of the main important things as an administrator to do. Now, not only push your own agenda, but thinking of the people that you’re serving first, just because you have this role. Just because you have this title doesn’t mean that you have that you have the capability or that you should have the capability just to decide on what you want to do. Just because that’s something that you want to do, you serve a greater and broader community. It’s not just about you, it’s about others that are kind of the stakeholders at your institution. So now going into the students, for students wanting to pursue this role. This kind of goes off of what JT said a little bit to know that your impact does not depend on your position. So understanding that, once again, just because you’re just doing by the President, that doesn’t mean you’re going to have this great impact. You don’t have an impact because your student body President, you have an impact. Because you’re Jael you have an impact because you’re JT trying to help you have an impact because you’re a king. It’s about your character within those genuine conversations with our individual conversations and connections that you’re making. That helps create an impact before I became a student body president, I don’t I’m not trying to like toot my own horn. But this is like something that like other people were. This is something that other people was telling me that I was truly helping them make a difference or helping them enjoy their experience at Rollins, but it wasn’t because I was doing my president, being Student Body President helped me connect to a greater community. Don’t get me wrong, it helped get my platform up there. But the work was already there before the platform So don’t just think that, Oh, I’m gonna make I want to be still my president because I want to make this great impact. No, those that impact that you want happens just based upon who you are in general position helps, but it’s not the determinant of how you make that impact.

Keith Edwards
All right. Great, Jael, how about you? I saw you in nod your head.

Jael Kerandi
No. I mean, I’m just, first of all, I’m like, take me back right now. I think, first for administrators, I think you have to look at your role at a university less as a job and more as a steward of the university. Yes, we have our Board of Regents Board of Overseers, trustees, whatever it might be at university, who are somewhat state mandated if it’s a public institution to take care of the university. But each administrator should also hold that role. Importantly, and the reason I say that is, at a public institution, you kind of have really true streams of income, it’s your state, and it’s your students. And we are continuously seeing this dichotomy of like really watching our state support, sometimes fall, right. So students are seeing an increase to their tuition, and becoming a deeper stakeholder and investor into our institution and anywhere where you invest your expect to return. And the people who are supposed to be guaranteeing that return. Are administrators, are our leaders are our board, making sure that students are receiving not only their learning, but the experience that’s promised to them. And what did you just said, what you put on the website has to match what you do in practice, the recruitment policies, and the ways in which we recruit students for university have to match what we do. When you’re an administrator, you have to learn to remove those the respectability politics and really say, what do students need? And in what ways do students need these things? And it’s really your job to do that. I don’t actually it’s forget, it’s actually your duty, right, to some extent. So I think to administrators who are looking to support students, I understand that sometimes it’s a risk. And it shouldn’t be, frankly, it should not be what students need. And the support that students are looking for, should be an earnest kind of perpetual thing that you’re seeking, you should be constantly trying to navigate what the students you need today, whether it’s a class of 2024 2026 2038, you should continuously be thinking and anticipating the needs of students today, as they continue to proceed. And at the one thing I think about administrators really having to learn is why do students need these things, I think their experience when they went through school, whether it was a master’s program, and undergrad, whatever, is going to be different. So while those experiences are valid, really taking the time to know what your students need and how they need it is important. And then to students. Administrators are there to support you with that that’s not who you represent. So I always would say, I would have to go toe to toe or say what I needed to say in the meeting and we could be perfectly fine after but understand that we are not my my interest is not necessarily to be your friend in that moment. It’s to make sure students are represented in the conversation. And like Jemaine said, You are so key to very, really hard conversations, whether they’re hard are super important search committees, whether you are the only person in the room, being asked a question, you know, I was student body president as COVID was starting. And I was sending like, 15 emails at 6am Every day, to any, any and each administrator letting them know, this is what students need in this area, I got this request, this is being expected. And you have to be relentless. Your efforts must be relentless, to really be successful, because at the end of the day, to be frank, some ministers are ready to wait students out. But you know what, as long as I’m here, you’re gonna have to keep waiting, because you have to be relentless, and you have to keep going. And you have to really take that responsibility so deeply, you cannot do it for the title, it will not be rewarding. If you do it for the title, you will get exhausted. Because at the end of the day, when you are through 18 to 20 hour days, because we are still students, you have to really find a way to be centered and grounded. And I often found that in whatever your support is, making sure you have people around you that are checking on your mental health, having people that are around you ready to support you. Because it’s not just the will to run, but it’s it’s the will to lead and that has to continue throughout your entire appointment. And that can often be difficult. So I always say if you know something like you know, JC said, if you know anyone in SGA everybody’s putting in that effort. It’s not just the SVP that is is putting their their efforts on the line and their advocacy on the line. And it’s kind of up to us to cultivate those leaders who are also ready to be in these positions and do this so I would tell them, No your why no I have this deep responsibility to do what it is, and be prepared to remember your power. I think sometimes administrators can often see student government as this small section, this small slice, okay, we might be small, but we’re mighty. And I think being really prepared to exert that power wherever necessary to make sure you advocate.

Keith Edwards
Wonderful, wonderful. Well, we are running out of time. And so the podcast is called Student Affairs NOW and we would love to end each of our episodes, but just asking each of you, what are you thinking about? What are you troubling? What are you pondering now might be something from this conversation or something that your campuses facing or, and then if you want to share with folks where folks can connect with you feel free to go ahead and do that? JT, let’s kick it off with you. What are you troubling now?

Jermaine Turner
Well, first of all, honestly, I’m just so honored to be here. And amongst such great leaders and such great people, um, it seems like I’m very grateful for the opportunity to be here and for what this podcast is doing. Um, I think for me, I’m planning to cover things from this conversation, right? I’m thinking about my future. So currently, right now, I’m on the pre law track. I’m currently studying for the LSAT as we speak, and then I’m going to take a gap year and move to DC, do a gap year there and then go on to law school. But, you know, God is very interesting. I’m a man of faith. So God is very interesting. And I’m, you know, as I’m reevaluating this conversation, everything that we learned, I know later in life that I would like to go into higher ed, but I’m pondering like, do I go to law school? Or do I get a master’s and go the PhD route and go straight into higher ed or do something else? You know, I think that that’s what I’ve been kind of pondering here lately, even though I’m currently studying for the LSAT, I’ve always had this dream of going to law school and being this super duper lawyer and helping people, right. But I think my experiences in life in this undergrad experience has taught me the power of when you understand a system, how you can help so many people. And that’s something that a lot of people in student affairs don’t have. They don’t usually, I mean, they come in with a thought they wanna help students, but they don’t come in with this experience of like, working in orientation, working in housing, working at this big composition. Now working with the university president, I mean, these are valuable experiences in the way that our student government function is, it is on department. So I’ve kind of considered like its own baby business, we have about 100k budget every year, as student body President, you manage about nine people in your executive staff that are also paid. So it’s also like these experiences have shaped this identity in this kind of nuance of me understanding how this system works, and how powerful it can be if you use it correctly. And even if you’re looking at now, and I’ll wrap up here, even if you’re looking at kind of the personal side of Texas, currently, right now, our legislator is attacking public higher ed institutions, there are several bills that could be taken away, vulnerable, you know, marginalized groups, communities, like our pipelines, which is for our queer folks. And like our multicultural center, which is for black and brown students to feel more connected and engaged in in any other diversity and inclusion practices are under attack right now in our state for public institutions. And I think that that is what scares me as well. And that is what some of that I’ve been pondering on this. What are students in Texas? What are we going to do with these bills do pass and then become effective immediately. So those are the two things on my mind the future, and then the future myself personally, in the future of just future students that are going to come to my university. So yeah,

Keith Edwards
awesome. Akheem, how about you? What do you what are you troubling now?

Akheem Mitchell
Sorry, now? Well, first, I want to say thank you, again, for inviting me and allowing me to be on this conversation with these phenomenal people. I mean, I just want to echo what JT was saying, this conversation has not only been like, it’s not only been good to just share some thoughts and some insights, but it’s also begin to just taking some wisdom from these other phenomenal and I was doing leaders, people in general. I mean, the one thing that’s troubling me right now, or just that’s on my mind, I’m a very optimistic person. So just optimism right now, just hearing these from this conversation and just hearing what was being shared. I mean, I’m just optimistic about the future, just because there might be a lot of dark things out there in the world right now. Knowing that people like us exist out there. Gives me faith, and it gives me hope, that it’s, it’s gonna be a brighter day. It’s kind of like every day the sun was shining, but that’s why we love tomorrow, you know, so tomorrow, but right now, another thing that’s troubling me right now, so I’m also with I’m not on Well, I mean, we don’t specifically have a pre law like program here, but it’s kind of like a pre law pre law, guidance within a sense by one of our professors. Dr. Small and right now in the process of trying to Getting to law schools. I’ve applied I’m still waiting back waiting to hear back from different schools haven’t heard anything yet. So just trying to see where my future lies, and what’s what’s what’s going ahead. We currently just elected our new president and vice president for the next academic school year. And helping them right now has been one of my main goals or main, main things I’m not to say worried about, because I’m never I’m not worried with them, just because I know that they got it all with the president, the president elect, she serves as our DEI chair for this for the school year. So she’s phenomenal. I mean, she does what needs to be done, we’ve sat in multiple meetings on the strategic plan for, here at college, and knowing just knowing that she’s already been in a work and that she’s committed to the work, and she’s passionate about the work has me thinking that it’s gonna, it’s gonna be a great time. But as of right now, I mean, I’m living. And I mean, that’s all I feel like, that’s all you really can do is just consistently, like, just try to live and just try to strive for what’s best and just put it in God’s hands. So I’m just grateful.

Keith Edwards
Awesome, awesome. Jael what are you pondering? Now? What’s on your mind?

Jael Kerandi
Yeah, I think hearing this conversation has been important. And it always kind of gives me energy, I think we always have to find things in life that are life giving, and this was one of them. But when I think of really kind of what’s on my mind, leaving the university, our being leading at the time that I did was during the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, where I was also student body president. And the activism that our student government participated in was phenomenal. And having the opportunity to lead students through that, and be their advocate was very important to me. I think leaving the university a lot of people were like, What are you going to do next? What are you going to do next, and I was said Godspeed. But more than that, I said, it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter where I go, because I’ll be an activist wherever I go. It isn’t, you could kind of throw me into any pocket and me pulling, I’m going to figure it out. Because activism to me is not, is not exclusive to a space, or a time or a person. So my activism, I’m in finance, and I’m in tech, my activism translates there as well. But it’s, I’m always thinking about what are students doing, I had the opportunity to speak at Princeton, last month, and just engaging with students was was so invigorating. So I feel like my heart is always going to be where the students are, because I truly do understand the power of education. But it’s really activism wherever I go. And trusting that we have leaders like JT and Akheem, that are not only there, but coming up. Like there’s so many leaders that are on the way to make these changes, because I don’t want our universities to forget what 2020 was, whether it was a pandemic, or the racial discrimination that we faced, or continue to face. So that’s what’s top of mind for me is, we have to make good on those promises. And I cannot wait to read about the students that are continuously doing that. And I think you also asked about how to connect with us, you can kind of find me by my name in various forms on social than LinkedIn or wherever it might be.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Well, this has been terrific. Thanks to each of you for being with us. Joining us sharing your experience and for your leadership on campus. I think this will be really valuable to many to learn from you. Thanks for your leadership and your contributions.

Well, thanks to all of you and hopefully folks will connect with you. We also want to conclude with thank our sponsors of today’s episode Symplicity. Symplicity is the global leader in student services technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals, a true partner to the institution, Symplicity supports all aspects of student life including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and well being student success and accessibility services to learn more visit symplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Huge shout out to our producer Nat Ambrosey who does all the behind the scenes work to make us all look and sound good. And if you’re listening today and not already receiving our weekly newsletter, please please visit our website at studentaffairsnow.com and scroll to the bottom of the homepage to add your email to our MailChimp list while you’re there, check out our archives. I’m Keith Keith Edwards. Thanks again to our fabulous guests today. And to everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thanks all.

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