Aubrey Ruffin, student body president, and Landry Baker, student body vice president, are committed to enhancing the student experience at OSU through their leadership in the Student Government Association. Their platform focuses on three key areas: strengthening communication between SGA and the student body by reforming social media and outreach efforts, increasing student involvement in SGA matters to create a more engaged and connected campus community and expanding awareness and accessibility of OSU’s mental health resources. By prioritizing these initiatives, they aim to ensure that every student feels heard, supported and empowered.

Q: Reflecting on your time in office, what accomplishments are you most proud of, and how do you think they have impacted the student body?

We are most proud of the collaborative environment we have worked to cultivate within the Student Government Associate (SGA). We hope that our increased internal collaboration has allowed SGA to become a cohesive group that is as productive as possible for the Student Body. We are also proud of the relationships that we have built with faculty and staff. We believe that these relationships will continue once we are gone and serve the student body well long-term.

 

Q: What was one of the biggest challenges you faced as SGA president and vice president, and how did you work to overcome it?

As soon as we were placed into the office, we quickly began to have a lot of ideas that we wanted to implement as soon as we could. We were extremely excited and ready to work.

 

As a few months went by, we were starting to get discouraged with what we were accomplishing. It took some time, but we realized that one of the most important things to do is make sure we are pouring into younger student leaders who can continue the work when we leave. Because change takes time, especially in an organization that has lots of turnover, we need to be working towards our goal with others who can continue to work on the projects long-term.

 

Q: How has serving in these leadership roles shaped your personal and professional growth?

This leadership role has taught us the importance of allowing people to have competing ideas and constructively express them. The beauty of student government is that we have differing opinions and it serves as a forum to voice these opinions. Through listening to others and working on creating compromises, it has led to more successful solutions and the ability to work with people with very different ideas.

 

Q: What advice would you give to future student leaders who want to make a difference on campus?

We would advise them to start getting involved in an area that they are passionate about early on. I would also tell them to reach out to the people in the positions that they are interested in and ask them questions about it. Every person before we reached out to was so encouraging and helped us get to the position we are in today.

 

Q: As you move forward in your careers, what lessons or skills from your SGA experience will you take with you, and how do you see them influencing your future endeavors?

The skills that we have learned in SGA that we think will carry into our careers are the ability to problem-solve and collaboration with others. No matter where we are or what we are doing, we will be working with others. We have come to have a greater appreciation for the help of others. As student leaders, it is easy to believe that your way is the best, but we have learned that others have valuable perspectives that we may not see, and that listening to them is one of our most helpful tools. We have also been able to work on being flexible and creating solutions. Things move fast and something unexpected will often pop up, so the skill of working quickly with others is something we have had a lot of practice with this year.