With student body presidential elections right around the corner, the pressure is on for those vying to lead the Student Governing Association and take on the task of being the primary representative of the student body.
However, for the Jacob Casey ticket, it’s not about winning.
During the student body presidential debates last week Casey, junior in hospitality management and political science, said he doesn’t stand up against the other two candidates who have been deeply immersed in SGA for a large portion of their time at Kansas State.
“One of the biggest things that our whole campaign is based on is honestly [that] me [and] Morgan [Boyer] have no intention of winning,” Casey said.
Casey and his running mate, Morgan Boyer, freshman in theatre, got into it mostly to find out what the process was like and share that with the students.
“We know a lot of people who don’t pay attention to SGA at all, but anyone can be involved in it,” Casey said. “It’s fun. It’s very simple. It’s not something that they try to gate keep. It’s just gate kept by this stigma, honestly.”
If elected, the three goals Casey hopes to accomplish are provide, inform and advocate. The campaign wants to provide students with the best experience they can to fulfill their needs, inform students about what SGA is and what it means for them and, finally, advocate for student issues.
“I would definitely try and really interact with the students because I feel like a lot of the students are currently fed up with all the administration,” Casey said. “Everything is just so slow with what the students want actually happening. So I am really just trying to speed that process up and even if I can’t, just be very transparent.”
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Casey and Boyer hope to reach the students in a way that is convenient for those they serve.
“It’s so easy to get in your own bubble in college so instead of just trying to pull them out of that bubble, how can we get that information into their bubble?” Casey said in regards to their goals.
Another goal of the pair is to show students that it’s good to try something new for the fun of it is while in college.
“[We want to] push students to just have fun, even if it’s not running for SGA,” Casey said. “Just trying to do things that you’re like, ‘That sounds fun, I should do it’ … students shouldn’t fear trying new things because you can always choose to back out if you don’t like it.”
Though it’s his name on the ticket, Casey expressed his desire to make his run about the students.
“That’s just why I like this campaign so much, because it’s really just about the students actually,” Casey said. “We’re not serious about winning, so we can focus all on the students and make sure that they get the most out of this.”
Voting in the student body presidential primary is on Tuesday and Wednesday. From there, the two candidates with the highest percentage of student votes will go head to head in the general election.
