Technician sat down with Logan Graham, the student body chief of staff under Student Body President Jackie Gonzalez and Student Body Vice President Mia Connell. We asked about his role, goals and experience studying abroad in Peru.
What is your role as Chief of Staff?
It’s kind of an ambiguous role. When you say “chief of staff,” a lot of people don’t know what that is. Essentially, it’s my job to be a key advisor to [Gonzalez] and [Connell], help them make important decisions affecting the school and affecting the kids here.
The other main job is more of the “staff” part of my title, and that’s to make sure the entire Student Government, specifically the executive department of Student Government, is functioning properly.
What experience prepares you for being chief of staff? What have you done for Student Government prior, and what led up to this experience?
I’ve been on Student Government for the past two years of college, which is my entire experience here at NC State, and two things that led up to that were knowing the ins and outs of Student Government — it’s somewhat a complicated organization — and knowing how it functions, who you need to talk to and how to make sure that you get things done.
Having leadership roles in different tiers of Student Government has allowed me to make connections both in Student Government and outside of Student Government with administrators — like the director of Transportation and the director of Housing — and students.
What are the biggest goals of Gonzalez and Connell that you are looking forward to implementing this year?
One of the first goals is ensuring Student Government is functioning to the best of its ability. A lot of that is inter-branch communication. That’s one of the big goals.
Another one of the big goals is creating more of a dialogue between Student Government and students. I think that’s always something that Student Government struggles with year in and year out.
One of the things we just did — I got an email yesterday about it — is setting up office hours for all the student leaders so that we’re in our offices in the Student Government suite when students can come talk to us.
The last major goal we have is to up the programming in Student Government and up the events we’re putting on, the things we’re advocating for.
What are your plans or ideas for communicating better between Student Government and the student body?
One of the ways we’re trying to do that, first and foremost, is through our town halls we hold every year. We’re doing one about every month this year. Our first one is going to be on mental health, and we encourage the student body to check that out and come out to it.
As I mentioned, we’re working on office hours, and I also think a lot of it is going to be on us personally. We should be meeting the people on the Brickyard, in Talley, saying, “hey, this is who I am, this is my name, I’m a leader on Student Government; what can we do for you? How can we help you?”
What are the biggest challenges that are facing students, and to what degree can Student Government address those challenges?
Right now, diversity is weighing heavily on my mind, and on a lot of people’s minds in Student Government from the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the events of the summer, so that’s something we’re working on hard.
We just had Respect the Pack Tuesday night. Our diversity director, J Hallen, did an awesome job putting that on, creating a dialogue between students in the entire campus community and how we can start to address diversity on campus. We’re trying to create an environment where the entire student body can stand against hate.
Tell me about your study abroad experience in Cuzco, Peru.
It was a wonderful time. It was great being in an entirely different culture, learning Spanish and meeting people I’ve never had an experience to interact with.
I had an incredible host family, which made a whole difference. My host Jesus, this 55 year-old, beer-bellied guy who’s just so jovial and so fun, I played soccer with him every Monday night. I had a host mom named Empe, another ball of energy.
I made a lot of lifelong friends down there, both the Peruvian students and the international students studying abroad.
Anything else you want to add?
Right now, Student Government is recruiting for new members, and we have an event coming up called Meet and Treat, which is about how you can get involved with Student Government, and that’s going to be coming up this Monday, Aug. 21, 6-8 p.m. in the Student Involvement Suite in Talley Student Union.
