Courtney Taylor

ASR: What experience do you have that qualifies you for the position you’re running for?

Taylor: I’d say that I have just enough experience in politics to know how to work within the system. I was an assistant campaign manager on a library campaign…we brought two new libraries to Vancouver. I have informally met a lot of politicians because it’s part of my major, so I’ve had the opportunity to talk to quite a few local politicians about what their job is like and what it really means, and the best way for me to break onto that scene because it’s what I want to do. So I know them and I’m friends with them. Like Tim Douglas who was the last interim mayor of Bellingham. We had lunch a few weeks ago and we talked live and politics and stuff.

But beyond that my experience is really in the leadership realm. Here at Western I’ve been an RA [Resident Advisor] for two years, I was an orientation student advisor and then a lead orientation student advisor the next year for summer start, and so I really do know the systems within Western and how they govern us. So I kind of want to find a balance between those two, of knowing the system but also being able to effect change, and I think my experience has really helped me to learn how to do that the best way.

ASR: What are your three biggest goals for next year if you get this job?

Taylor: Recently, actually, I came up with a new goal. Yesterday in my Medicine, Health and Healing class, we just started talking about women’s health in the class, and it keeps coming up, because I consider myself a feminist, and I have a few friends in that class, and we just keep bringing it up. It’s something I’ve found that’s lacking on our campus is alternative forms of health as well as prioritizing women’s health and the education around that. So that’s something that I’ve just recently decided would be really awesome to do in my job.

But I also really want to tackle voter apathy, because I have a bunch of friends that don’t vote, and I don’t hate on them for it. I try to be more understanding, because what it really comes down to is it’s a lot of work to research the issues out there, and people just don’t have the time, and I would rather not vote than make an uneducated decision. So really what I want to focus on is educating our students on the issues, but not through traditional means.

I would totally be willing to make a YouTube video of myself looking like a fool if it helps to educate our students, or finding a way through Facebook. I’m really familiar with surveying through the residence halls, and I really think it would be awesome to do some surveys through the school to find out what people know, what they don’t know, and what they’d like to know more about, and really get heavy into that.

My last issue of course it bringing politics back to Western. We spend a lot of time and money down in Olympia, and unfortunately we don’t get a lot of return on that, which is really sad, but because we’re students, we can go down there and lobby all we want, but we don’t really vote, so we can put all this money into lobbying, but really, our voice doesn’t matter as much as it should.

So instead of wasting our money on that, I’d like to maybe focus more on the rules and regulations that are within Western that we don’t really have a voice, and I feel that in our campus, the administration and people who are paid long term positions have more voice than the students who actually are paying to go here.

ASR: What are one or two decisions the board made this year that you disagree with, or that you would change?

Taylor: I have a really hard time making a statement like that, just because I am a leader, and I feel like criticizing people for doing the best that they can is really really hard for me. I thinki my two biggest criticisms: One would be that the comprehensiveness of our legislative agenda that we took down to Olympia this year, there were a lot of issues that Western had a say on, and I think that it would be better if we could get a more concise list of stuff that is directed at us specifically.

We get a lot of pro-environment stuff, which is really good, but at the same time they don’t really care about our voice, so we’ve kind of wasted our time making statements about that. I feel like that’s a common theme, is that we spend a lot of time and energy on stuff that could be used better somewhere else.

I feel like the length of time that we’ve been dealing with the skateboard issue has been really frustrating for me because that’s an issue that is low-range. There are certain people that might care about it, but we’ve spent a lot of time dealing with it over at least the three years that I’ve been here, and we need to come to some sort of consensus. That means that our student senate isn’t very effective, and that we really aren’t getting as many student voices on this issue as we would like.

ASR: What past or present political leader do you identify with?

Taylor: Probably Eleanor Roosevelt. She was really known for making a position out of nothing. Prior to her, the first lady didn’t really do a whole lot. And that’s the type of person I am. I would love to have this position as a title, but that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m going to do a lot of other things that I say I’m doing regardless of whether I get this position or not, and that’s totally Eleanor Roosevelt. She was the one that was like, “You know what, I don’t care that I’m just first lady, there are a lot of things that I care about and I have a voice too,” so she really used that to the best of her ability.

I’ve been an RA for two years now, and I’m one of the most active RA’s that I know. I served on several committees lasts year. I’ve done lots of new innovative things that go above and beyond the regular RA requirements. I organized and put on two programs a quarter, and I organized an entire week of programming around diversity, just because that’s something that I’m really passionate about, and that’s totally the type of person I am. I say I’m going to do something, and I do it, and I go above and beyond anybody’s expectations.

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