Wearing many hats, Williams strives to represent students

Many students are overwhelmed just handling a full schedule of classes.

But this semester,… Many students are overwhelmed just handling a full schedule of classes.

But this semester, Student Government Board member Lauren Evette Williams will not only be handling the daily grind of being a student, be she will also serve on SGB and as Black Action Society’s president.

According to Williams, she’s used to being busy by now. Last year, the second-term board member also served as a co-programming chair for BAS. She simply walked back and forth between the two sixth-floor William Pitt Union offices, she said.

“It’s not hard at all,” Williams said of her schedule. “I think all people should do it.”

Both organizations with which she is involved provide her with many different experiences that will help her in the future, she added. And, when going to a job interview, she will have a lot of past projects to discuss.

Williams, who hails from New Castle, Del., is not the only BAS leader on the board this year: fellow SGB member Charis Jones will serve as the vice president of BAS.

With two BAS leaders on the board, Williams expects SGB will have a better understanding of BAS and the way in which it is run, particularly regarding its finances.

Williams emphasized, though, that as a board member she must represent all students on campus, and not just her BAS constituents. When entering the SGB office, she will wear a “different hat” than the one that she will wear as BAS president.

Throughout her fall-term campaign last year, Williams, a senior communications and rhetoric major, promised to act on the behalf of students.

And, she said, she did just that when approaching such subjects as the United States Student Association vote.

“You could just tell from the beginning it wasn’t going to go,” she said. But instead of backing away from the issue, Williams and a few of her fellow board members fought for a continued partnership with the nation-wide grassroots lobbying organization.

By continuing to voice her opinion, despite believing that the majority of the board did not agree with her, Williams said she could walk out with her head still held up.

By the end of the spring term, the board’s split vote ended the partnership, and Williams does not see the current board reversing that decision. But she does anticipate it playing an important part in the upcoming November elections.

Though it may not be an issue that candidates run on, it will be something that voters — particularly USSA supporters — will be thinking about as they cast their votes. And for those who feel very strongly about USSA involvement, there will be more determination to change the makeup of the board, Williams added.

When not vocally supporting USSA, Williams has also spent time working to create a leadership conference for student groups. The conference would give student organization leaders the opportunities to attend off-campus workshops that will teach various organizational and leadership skills.

“Leadership skills are very important,” Williams said. “I know that from BAS.”

Currently, SGB is the only group technically allowed to hold conferences, Williams said. She added that the board is there to help groups function and, therefore, should help build up leadership roles without making each group pay for its own strategy session every year.

For now, the conference is scheduled to take place in October. Williams plans to talk more with administration and group leaders to find out exactly what types of skills they would like to learn at the conference.

With this year’s increased student activities fee and SGB’s greater role in its distribution, Williams hopes that the allocations process will become fairer for all student groups. She said she is not quite sure how to go about making it better, but she suggested, “not [being] hung up on the black-and-white of the allocations manual.”

Throughout her term, Williams has been looking into how other colleges’ and universities’ student governments are run.

“Our Student Government Board’s drastically different from other schools,” she said of her findings.

Other schools seem to have more student input, she said. Some of the schools she studied not only have an executive board, similar to Pitt’s current eight-member board and president, but also a student senate.

In a school of Pitt’s size, nine people elected to serve the student body cannot represent everyone, she said.