by Emma Zellmer | Minnesota State University, Mankato
My name is Emma Zellmer (she/her) and I am excited to declare my candidacy for Students United State Chair with the objective to further our organizations mission, values, and vision by bringing more student voices to the table. I have been lucky to be involved in Students United for the past three years, being involved as a student through the many conferences and committees and my passion for our mission and student advocacy led me to run and serve as the Vice-Chair for this past year. Before my time as Vice-Chair, I served as the speaker of the MNSU Mankato Student Government where I worked to create a committee for student basic needs, advocated to University, state and local officials and successfully accomplished all ‘chair’ duties. At Mankato I was also a community advisor where I worked with students from diverse backgrounds to ensure that they have a successful and fulfilling student experience and got more engaged on campus. As advisor to my floor’s community council, we were names community council of the year due to our engagement levels and organizing ability.
As Vice-Chair for the 2020-2021 school year I have been able to accomplish many things that have helped us work towards our organizations vision, upheld our values, and ensured implementation of our mission. By building an online structure for our board committees to follow, our organization has been able to stay informed on student needs and ideas. With that being said, I believe that our greatest accomplishments have been the creation of the ‘senate connections’ event that I promised to create while running for Vice-Chair, our successful GOTV efforts, the increased student involvement on system committees, and increased information sharing between our institutions.
As State Chair, I hope to continue the great work that we have done this year but build upon it in many ways. As Students United, it is important to ensure that we are upholding our organizations plural name by brining students directly, not just through the officers, to the system office (where no students work) and board of trustees.
As State Chair, I commit to achieving the following and more:
Bring at minimum 20 students directly to the system office and Board of Trustees.
Hold our local, state, federal, and system offices accountable to students and increase transparency.
Expand on senate connections and build a successful campus committee structure.
The role of the Students United State chair is to speak on behalf of the board, however in the past few years this has turned into the State Chair and officers being some of the only voices for students heard by decision makers. Putting only one face and voice to student issues is not an effective way to show how diverse our students and their experiences are. As state chair I would ensure that Students United is doing our duty of bringing student voices to chancellor meetings, the board of trustees, and bring more students to their local, state, and federal legislators. Only by putting faces and voices, beyond the state chair, to our student’s stories can we show the true diversity of experiences that our students have and ensure that the offices that serve us know who their decisions effect.
For years, students have struggled to make their voices heard and taken into serious consideration at local, system, state, and federal offices despite the hard work of Students United. As state chair I would leverage the increase in press due to the pandemic to put pressure on our student’s representatives by working closely with our press connections, our student newspapers, press releases, and through collective organizing we can help students and the press to ensure that student voices are heard and not be taken advantage of. When there are important decisions being made that effect students, it is the job of the State Chair and Students United to organize with and mobilize students for collective action campaigns such as protests, mass letter, email, or phone campaigns, setting up more advocacy meetings, and more. By increasing transparency between our organization, legislators, and students through press releases and student newspapers we can ensure that more students are aware of our organization as well as what is happening at the local, system, state and federal level.
As Vice-Chair this past year, I brought the idea of ‘senate connections’ to our Director of Equity and Inclusion. Following through on the promise in my Vice-Chair letter of intent, we have been able to bring student senates together to share ideas and work on shared issues. As State Chair, I commit to expand beyond our senate connections events to reach students outside of student senates to ensure that we are providing resources, trainings, and connections for all students. Only by expanding outreach to all students can we ensure that we are fully representative of all student experiences. By working with our board, I will build and roll out a campus committee structure that will work to ensure all students are aware of our organization and accomplish other tasks that the board would like to see.
I look forward to answering any and all questions from students and the Board and thank you for your consideration.