Kayla Britt

ASR: What experience do you have that makes you qualified for this position?

Britt: First I would say that I am the current vice president for Diversity, so I am running for reelection. I feel like I have a lot of experience under my belt being VP for Diversity this year and I have done a lot of things different that past VPs for Diversity have not done. It has given me a good working knowledge of the AS. My approach to the position has been that it is very important to raise awareness about different issues but I think that sometimes we talk about the same things over and over again and no one really does anything about it.

One thing I did was I started working with the [Ethnic Student Center] ESC and started updating the organizational system because it had not been updated in seven years. It is really expanding and it wasn’t able to adapt to the growth of students. I helped teach the students that they can make the changes themselves and teaching them how to evolve them over the years so that they will stay current.

I also worked a lot with disability awareness this year, I worked with the Students for Disability Awareness and I’ve been working with the Equal Opportunity Office to address building accommodations on campus. That is something I would really like to continue working on next year. I consider myself a product of the ESC, but I also know that ethnic minorities aren’t the only diverse group on this campus. I hope that my previous work with the ESC will allow for future VPs for Diversity to continue to work with the ESC but also work with other realms on campus.

ASR: What are three biggest goals for next year?

Britt: I still want to continue working with the ESC because I think it’s a long term learning process to adapt to a lot of changes and to make it part of the culture that things can change every year if they aren’t working for you.

I started working on a project with the current AS president on faculty sensitivity, trying to do preventative methods so that there won’t be so many complaints. There are complaints that come in, but there’s a legal line between what’s discriminatory and what’s insensitive. I want to make faculty sensitivity a norm on this campus and institutionalize it.

I’d also like to work with the Resource and Outreach Programs and try and make a stronger relationship between them and Residence Life so freshmen will be able to be exposed to those resources a lot earlier.

ASR: What is a decision made by the board that you support or disagree with?

Britt: I think that being on the board this year it has really important for us to stand by each other and come at things as a whole. There have been times that at board meeting where we don’t all agree with things and I think that’s good. There is a good ratio representation of people who agree to people who disagree and people who don’t have an opinion about something. In the end, we try to think about what would help the majority of the student body. I haven’t agreed with every decision, there have been ones I’ve voted against or abstained from, but I think it’s important to stand behind the board as a whole because we really do have students in mind in all the decisions that we make.

ABN: What platform will you be running on?

Britt: As far as the disability accommodations, all the buildings have been looked at and all the things that need to be fixed have been identified but we don’t enough funding on our campus to address these and actually change them. I hope to work with whoever the VP for Government and Legislative Affairs is next year and really prioritize that and work to get funding so that our campus can be accommodating for everyone.

ASR: What past or present politician do you really identify with?

Britt: I first want to state that I love Barack Obama, but I really think that personally I have felt a lot of similarities between Hillary Clinton. Being in this position has been very difficult being a woman. A lot of the people I work with are my friends, there has to be a line between my personal time with and my professional time with them. I think that it is really hard to define that. I think there are gender issues in leadership and as whole I think people naturally think male and leader. So I think it’s difficult to be in a leader position, especially working with your friends, to make a very definite line between personal and professional.

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