<\/p>\n
Alyssa Feige, sophomore political science major, films in front of the Student Union. \u201cI\u2019ve learned how to write efficient plans, plans that are actionable, but to also be able to recognize the weaknesses,\u201d Feige said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Anna Ellis<\/p>\n
Midterms aren’t the only thing in our midst. Alyssa Feige and Anna Ellis are running for UCF\u2019s student government as president and vice president, respectively. Their campaign platform\u00a0focuses on student quality of life, employment and internship opportunities, and SG transparency.<\/p>\n
From rooming together during their freshman year to becoming best friends, Feige and Ellis are running with their experience at UCF so far in mind to mitigate the overall UCF student experience so that students can feel comfortable and safe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen things that people who\u2019ve only been doing student government might not see,” Ellis said. \u201cYou know when you\u2019re writing an essay and before you send it off, you have an outside perspective to read it over, a pair of fresh eyes to make sure everything makes sense? That\u2019s what we want to apply as part of student government, fresh eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both sophomores, Feige is a political science major with a minor in international relations, and Ellis is a legal studies major. They have both participated in various student-run organizations, including Model United Nations.<\/p>\n
Feige serves as a secretary for Model U.N. and also works as an intern at the UCF Office of Global Perspectives and International Initiatives. She has been interning for Fernando Rivera, a sociology professor and the director of the Puerto Rico Research Hub at UCF, since the beginning of the semester.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of not only pinpointing or addressing issues, but actually making the commitment to public service is amazing as a student, especially at an institution as large as UCF,\u201d Rivera said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ellis is part of eight student-run organizations, including the debate team, the art history club and the film club. She also works as the secretary for Speaking Knights.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Feige explains that her shared hit-the-ground-running mentality with Ellis prompted them to go around campus to speak to students about their opinions of what they would like to see from their student government, sparking the movement of their campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOpening that door to conversation, though it might be an uncomfortable conversation, it\u2019s still a conversation that needs to be had,\u201d Feige said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In terms of improving student quality of life, the pair would like to work with UCF to invest in disposable ponchos, menstrual products for the union restrooms for students and garden lights to light the path of the walkways around the Libra community, which are currently pitch black at night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a downtown campus student, Ellis said she has had firsthand experience and witnessed bus delays or cancellations that affect student attendance in classes. With this campaign, Feige and Ellis would like to delve into creating shuttle vouchers that could act as tardy vouchers to excuse classroom tardiness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Feige and Ellis have also been working on an audit of the parking that is readily available in hopes to propose the idea of parking reallocation to make more student parking that is closer to student facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of employee parking that is really close to where students need to be, and that isn’t actually beneficial to the employees, so we would reallocate those spots and give them employee spots in a different place that is more beneficial to the employees,\u201d Ellis said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ensuring that news of any student employment and internship opportunities is accessible to all students is a priority for the Feige-Ellis presidential ticket.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to have a campus-wide email that is sent when a job on campus is available to make it more fair for everyone,” Ellis said. “We would also like to make sure to have steps on how to fill out the applications in the email.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
They also plan to speak with business clubs across UCF to collaborate to host a business networking event that teaches students how to network and encourages varying internship opportunities. The pair emphasizes the significance of teamwork to keep ideas flowing.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeadership means knowing when you don\u2019t know the full extent of an issue and being able to say, \u2018I didn\u2019t think about this before,\u2019” Feige said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Transparency is another goal they said they seek to achieve as leaders. They plan to keep the term government website updated with details of recent meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur initiative focuses on publicity, advertising to students, and getting the average student informed with the student government because when we asked around \u2018what initiatives would you like to see,\u2019 a lot of people didn\u2019t know what the student government does,\u201d Feige said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Anna Ellis, sophomore legal studies major,\u00a0types out the Feige-Ellis \u201ccampaign promises\u201d for her upcoming campaign to be the student government vice president from her UCF dorm.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Alyssa Feige<\/p>\n
Feige and Ellis would like to encourage an open-door policy where students can freely submit suggestions, requests and ideas for the betterment of the student body.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLike how Aaron Burr says in Hamilton, we want to be in the room where it happens. We want to know what people are saying and trying to do,\u201d Ellis said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The policy would also allow Feige and Ellis to ask for and receive constructive criticism in their roles, as this is their first time running for the student government. However, they aim to listen with an open mind and to persistently cater to the student body.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust because we lack experience in student government doesn\u2019t mean we lack experience in knowing how to lead. We more than make up for our lack of experience with our heart and our willingness to work hard,\u201d Feige said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alyssa Feige, sophomore political science major, films in front of the Student Union. \u201cI\u2019ve learned how to write…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[115,139,141,140,22849],"class_list":{"0":"post-181090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-orlando","10":"tag-orlando-headlines","11":"tag-orlando-news","12":"tag-student_government"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}