BY Arnavee Maltare [sHE/Her] | vice chair
Salutations,
I am a little emotional as today (July 1st) marks the first day of not serving as the Vice Chair of Students United, but I must say serving as the Vice Chair of Students United for a year and being involved in Students United for most of my academic journey has been filled with wonderful memories, great experiences, and a lot of advocacy!
When I write about my journey at Students United, I don’t think words would do justice to the immense love, support, guidance, ability to advocate for students as a student, and a lot more that the organization has provided me with. Again, when I say “organization”, it is always the “people”, and these are the people who make the organization and who care!
The work we do as Students United would be very difficult to summarize in a blog post. It was great to be able to come back in person after two years of the pandemic and adopting to “new normal”. We were still able to accomplish a lot of things and it is always good to celebrate the advocacy wins along the journey. SU provided us with a lot of opportunities of being able to lobby in Washington D.C., having an in-person Advocacy Conference, conducting the campus visits learning about students’ issues, along with providing safety to our students.
There are two mantras in my life:
1. Keep Moving Forward (the show must go on, right!?)
2. Shh! I am not going to tell you it’s a secret (it’s never stop learning)
Working at SU and advocating for the students deepened my believing in these two mantras of life. The work we do is meaningful, and it takes a lot of patience and hard work to move towards our goals which can be frustrating sometimes and, with a pandemic going alongside, the circumstances were a little different.
And that is what we did during the pandemic; we kept moving forward by learning the new normal, adopting ways to keep the advocacy going and working for the students
I have had to opportunity to work with a team of great individuals in multiple areas that were focused on students and helped me grow as an individual and develop the skills I never thought I would.
I would love to thank Carlee Diggins and Abeer Syedah for being great mentors and always supporting me and helping me become the person I am today, Christina DeVries for all the fundraising experiences and pushing me to go out of my comfort zones, Devin Smith for providing me with insightfulness on topics I had no knowledge about and all the gaming conversations ofc!, Connor Newby and Kalista Mangahas for always providing me with flexibility with work (and when I got cold feet!), Thomas Anderson for teaching me to lobby at the state and federal level and helping me prepare for the real world, Caitlin Johnson for being a wonderful friend and supporting me to be creative and innovative with the work we do! And the list goes on…
I also had a chance to work with Emma Zellmer and Pierre Young and some wonderful Board of Directors, and I must say we make a (pretty) diverse team, I have learned a lot from both of you, and I am glad we were all able to come back in person and make things happen!
Students United has provided me with lifelong memories, great friends, and a skillset that would help me support my fellow peers. I will miss working here but it is always a “see you later” and never “goodbyes. As our lovely former Director Carlee says, “Once a lifer, always a lifer”, I also hope to continue to support students and advocate for students as we move forward with a lot of victories and accomplishments, there is still a lot of work we can do! So, reach out anytime and I am on board 😉
I’ll be around. So, I’ll see you later.