Student Government President Emory Cavin and Chief of Staff Tanner Kelly have conducted a listening tour with some of the identity-based RSOs on Campus.
In order to better represent the student body as a whole, Cavin implemented the tours to see how students feel about their overall campus experience.
The tour was done to see how the experiences of students have affected them and their lives to help Student Government better represent them.
“My Chief of Staff and I decided to just sit down with identity based RSOs and talk with them,” Cavin said. “The rationale behind [the tour] being that my job as Student Government President is to represent 16,000 students, and I’m one student with one specific set of life experiences and hurdles, and I want to see the other experiences of other students and hurdles they have experienced who have a different background.”
Some of the identity-based RSOs that had been contacted include the Multicultural Greek Council, The Latin American Student Organization, the Student Farmworkers Alliance (SFA), Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) and others.
“We… have had many fruitful conversations so far.” Kelly said. “We are planning on using the information we receive to make action items in the future.”
The SFA is dedicated to helping the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and advocating for farmworker justice and equitable systems.
“I thought the listening tour went pretty well, even though it was awkward, since it was the first time a majority of the people in the room were able to have a candid conversation with someone who had close connections to higher administration staff” SFA president Karla Trejo said.
“Initially, I was hesitant to have him come speak with SFA since I wasn’t sure how genuine the questions would be and in past years, when the relationship between SFA & SG was strained, and it could also be said for a lot of other identity-based organizations.” Trejo said. “Because of how much both President Cavin and Secretary Kelly put into these listening tours, it made me more comfortable to invite them, and the conversation that was able to happen was nice and definitely felt rewarding.”
She said it’s good that SG is working to ensure that all students on campus feel heard and included.
“For a lot of us in the room, we have to carry the weight of being the only Hispanic/Latine in the spaces on campus and we see issues within the school that we don’t have the space to address our concerns and frustrations,” she said.
Cavin has already discussed some of the feedback he received on this listening tour with President Aysegul Timur.
“… She was very receptive. She has told me about specific steps that she is going to take to remedy some of the issues that we discussed.” Cavin said.
Cavin and Kelly are also working to create a full report of the feedback received from their listening tour to share with President Timur.
