Allie Bedell
Equinox Staff
As spring semester comes to a close, student body president Donnie Clemmensen prepares to graduate and pass off his position to junior Colin Daly who will take the office next year. The current student body vice president is ready to take on the role and has many ideas to strengthen and unify student government at Keene State College in order to better serve students.
Daly explained that as co-chair of the events committee with Clemmenson this year, as is standard for student body president and vice president, they were able to host new events that received positive feedback from the student population.
“We put on a couple of new events this year,” Daly said, noting Feel the Music, which donated money to the Austine School for the Deaf and the Sizzler eating contest.
But in addition to working on events next year as the student body president, Daly’s looking to solve some larger campus issues, pointing out that the Social Activites Council can really take the lead in holding events for KSC students.
“We always know there are things that can be changed,” Daly said. “Money’s always an issue.”
Daly said that especially with the projected budget cuts for the University System of New Hampshire next year, he’d like to turn to the students in order to better serve them and solve some of their issues.
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“Colin is very open-minded and ambitious for change, so I’m excited to see how his plans play out,” Dayna Coleman, SAC treasurer, said.
In addition to events this year, Daly’s already worked to put into action some more student issue oriented changes across campus.
At the start of the semester, he discussed putting into place a text message notification system in conjunction with Campus Safety in order to notify students when there are tickets to help minimize the number of cars towed on campus.
He’s also currently working with the college to try and move course evaluation forms online, in order to encourage students to take more time on them and seriously consider their input, rather than scribbling an answer at the end of class.
Daly didn’t come to KSC looking for this office, however. After graduating with his class of 110 in Cromwell, Conn., KSC seemed impossibly large. Daly swam for the school freshman year, but diverted his attention sophomore year when he became a Resident Assistant in Carle.
Even after taking an RA position, Daly still felt like he could be doing more on campus.
“I felt like I had too much time,” Daly said.
Before junior year, Daly ran for student body vice president and won. He spent the first few months of junior year getting acclimated to the position while continuing to be an RA, as well as adopting a little buddy through Big Brothers, Big Sisters.
“I’ve known Colin as an RA and he’s a great student, friend, co-worker, and a good role model for other students,” Courtney Hoelen, president of the class of 2012, said. “I know the position requires a lot of long hours and hard work and Colin has it in him to handle all of it.”
As for adapting to his position as student body vice president at the beginning of his junior year, Daly said that it required a lot of learning.
“It took several months to figure out how everything goes,” Daly said.
“He has new and fresh ideas, obviously cares about students and the campus community, and has had a year as vice president to learn the ropes a little and formulate some strategies to move things forward,” Jen Ferrell, director of student involvement, said. “I am interested to see his growth as a leader in this position and his ability to navigate campus politics.”
Daly’s biggest concern, however, is not taking the ropes as student body president, but rather trying to unify student government itself.
“We have to educate the people in our organization before we can help other organizations,” Daly said. “In doing so we’ll be able to strenthgen other organizations.”
Daly wants next year’s student government to be more organized. Too often, he claims, clubs and organizations are unsure of procedures they need to follow, for example, when requesting funds for their clubs.
Daly believes that student government should be able to help student groups on campus.
Daly hopes to implement a system where student government members are assigned specific clubs to work with closely. He wants clubs to have a go-to person who can help them with any needs. The student government representative for each club would be able to provide clubs with the answers and solutions.
He said that this has been attempted in the past, but hasn’t been nearly as successful as he would like.
“We tried to, but it’s hard to have a concrete structure with it,” Daly said.
Ultimately, he says that student government has a responsibility to the students at KSC.
He plans to create a working enviornment next year in which this remains true.
“I want to hold this to a high standard,” Daly said. “We should be role models.”
Allie Bedell can be contacted at abedell@keeneequinox.com
