Dear fellow K-Staters,
Joe and I hope you had a wonderful weekend and are preparing for the final stretch of the semester. We are excited to be your student body president and vice president for the coming year – It is a responsibility we do not take lightly.
We want to thank everyone who voted for us. We also want to thank Alex Bahr and Matt Tobaben for some great competition down the stretch. We are truly humbled by the support shown to us by the K-State community and will strive to live up to your expectations. The road ahead is challenging, but we are excited by the opportunity to work with your elected representatives to enhance your experience at K-State.
Last year, our predecessors took some vital steps towards truly making K-State’s campus a home away from home. It is now our turn. After much deliberation, Joe and I decided on three areas where we believe we can have the most impact to enhance the student experience at K-State. Our platforms are the student success collaborative, open textbook initiative and co-curricular involvement tracker. Each are a means to address issues that affect all students, including us, personally.
Joe and I have both changed our majors multiple times. With the difficult decision of switching majors came the stress of transferring credits, finding a minor that complements the new major and generally wondering if the decision you’ve made is the right one.
The student success collaborative is a technology platform designed to address these issues. Administered through KSIS, this program will assist with advising and providing students more resources which, in turn, will allow them to make smarter decisions about selecting an education that is right for them.
Saying textbooks are expensive would be an understatement. It’s no secret that college costs are rising and textbooks form a big part of that expense. I have been in classes where paying $150 for a textbook that is barely used just doesn’t make sense anymore. Not buying a textbook, however, hurts my ability to learn.
The open textbook initiative aims to advocate for developing a standard of class materials that substantially reduces the cost on students. The initiative will also focus on increasing interaction between teachers and students to ensure that they are getting the most relevant and current information in a stimulating environment.
When applying for jobs and internships, like most of you, I am constantly asked to elaborate on my extracurricular experiences to perspective employers. We are told that your experience in activities outside the classroom matter in the workplace, but quantifying those experiences is a challenge in itself.
Joe and I believe the co-curricular involvement tracker, a program that categorizes student groups you’ve been involved with and provides a reflective piece to everything you do outside of the classroom, will help students better articulate their collegiate story to employers.
Joe and I picked these platforms because they were issues that hit home with us. We really believe in the family environment at K-State and want to ensure we’re doing all we can to give our family the best college experience. We believe these platforms are ways that the experience for K-State students could be a little bit better.
Lastly, K-State SGA lives off the feedback from the K-State community and we would love to hear from you. We encourage you to reach out to us, our cabinet or representatives from your college with any questions or concerns you might have about our platforms or general campus issues. You can contact us either by email at sga@ksu.edu or tweet at us @KStateSBP_SBVP.
Good luck with your last few weeks of the semester and we look forward to welcoming you back in the fall.
Thank you and go ‘Cats,
Andy Hurtig, student body president
Joe Tinker, student body vice president
@KStateSBP_SBVP
