By Vice Chair, Sandra Shimba
There is a proverb in my language that says that good things don’t last long, and I can say the same thing for this fabulous opportunity that I had serving and representing as your Vice Chair. Therefore, this is not a “goodbye” but more an “until we meet again.”
I mostly enjoyed meeting and discussing with different students, during our different conferences but mostly visiting the different campus and meeting students in their environment. I had made that my priority when running and I can proudly that I have accomplished that. Working with all our amazing Board of Directors, fellow officers, and our fantastic staff (there is truly none like them).
Looking back at this year I can say that it has been thrilling and challenging at the same. We started of strong by solidifying our relationship with other bargaining units like the IFO and raising more awareness on the nature of our organizations on our different campuses. I am also say proud that we accomplished most of objectives like creating On-campus food pantry funding initiatives on campuses that did not have any and raising awareness on campuses that had them, conducting food-drives, voter-registration campaigns, collaborating with university leadership council to ensure the signing of carbon commitment, collaborating with IFO and MinnState office on Equity 2030, advocating with some of your peers on our set objectives on state and federal level.
The second half of the year was clouded with uncertainty and challenges because of the pandemic and the pain and frustration that we are all going through because of the brutal killing of George Floyd and many others. However, that did not stop us we were able to get a tuition freeze for the first half of 2020-2021 academic year and advocate for our black students at the Minnesota State level and the state and federal legislature.
I am extremely grateful for the people I worked with and the support that they have given me during this year. I most grateful to have served my fellow students to best of my abilities in this journey of giving our Minnesota state students the best higher education experience, and I sure that our next officers will raise the students united banner even higher than it is now!