A sit down interview with SGA presidential candidate Maxwell Wilson about his intentions to run for the position
For almost a year, Maxwell Wilson has been recording thoughts about what being president of Azusa Pacific’s Student Government Association (SGA) would look like on his phone.
The junior psychology and honors humanities major is running as a candidate in this year’s SGA presidential elections. He aims to develop SGA’s relationships with offices on campus, be more transparent with the student body about SGA’s initiatives and to expand outreach within the community. Wilson plans to accomplish this by adopting a more proactive, hands-on approach towards bringing SGA’s ideas into fruition such as surveying students and collecting signatures.
Wilson feels his experiences as SGA representative his freshman year and multicultural senator his sophomore year have shown him what it means to serve the student body, as well as which areas the university can improve in. Wilson aspires to become a pastor post-graduation, and hopes that becoming SGA president would provide him with the opportunity to develop his leadership qualities.
In a sit down interview with ZU Media, Wilson shared how he plans on addressing pressing issues in the APU community, executing the groundwork that has been laid down by previous SGA administrations and remedying the disconnect that exists between the student body and SGA.
ZU Media: Can you describe yourself?
Max: If someone were to meet me for the first time, they would notice that I am really energetic, really passionate and really emotional (but the good kind). I really feel things with my heart and I’m really passionate about everything that I do whether that’s school work or leadership. I intern at Fellowship Monrovia, so working with students; I just really poor my heart into it.
ZM: Would you say you apply your major as well to your intention to run for SGA president?
M: As a psychology major, it’s all about how we interact with ourselves and with other people and to a certain extent, if you’re a believer, how you interact with God. And so it’s how to be a full human. How to be kind, how to be mature, how to be balanced, and bringing that into SGA: my mindset is ‘Okay, when I help build a team, what is that going to look like? How do we make that culture a thing? How do we make sure we are interacting with students positively? How do we make sure that people know what’s going on at SGA? How do we get student feedback, student ideas? We’re a team of around 20 people, but at the same time, we’re supposed to represent thousands of students, so why not make it a team of thousands?
I am also an honors major which is all about deep thinking about life, asking questions, really looking into things. I’ve actually had a journal in my phone for the past year, or since last March, processing what it would be like to be SGA president, really thinking about it and how I would want to interact with offices, how I would want to interact with other students, what I would want people to think the first time they hear the words SGA.
ZM: What made you initially want to run?
M: When I first came to APU, it was a really big blessing to be able to come here, not only through the school but through family and all the people that got me to where I am today, so my mindset coming in freshman year was ‘Wow, I really want to serve this school, I really want to help lead here, I want to give back in any way I possibly can.’ So I was involved in the Black Student Association as one of their lead team members. I was an ambassador. I was also SGA representative and so that’s how I first got acquainted with the role.
At first, I was like dang, SGA would be so hard. But the more I fell in love with SGA, the more projects I got involved with, the more I could see how we could actually make change in our school, even though it may not seem like it at first glance. And so I’ve been thinking about it since freshman year, and I think sophomore year especially with a lot of the experiences that I had, seeing APU through its really hard times as well as its really good times, helped to give me perspective that I believe I can really serve the student body with.
ZM: What would you hope to change during your presidency, especially considering that students don’t know what SGA does, and with you running, what would you want to bring to that role, in terms of bringing awareness towards what the SGA really does for the student body?
M: Ideas [within SGA] typically are very ‘in house,’ they don’t necessarily leave SGA. Like my freshman year, there was some legislation regarding longboards, scooters and rollerblades and stuff on campus where they were considering limiting its use for safety purposes, We discussed that for a couple of weeks and asked ‘Okay, what does it look like to maybe keep people safe but also keep longboards on campus’ because they are pretty important. It’s a relatively small example, but at the same time it was very important but my friend just didn’t know about it.
What I would like to get accomplished, right off the bat, going into SGA is changing some of our structure a bit, where whenever we have an idea, it would look like going and getting 50 signatures from the student body. And as you’re going out and getting those signatures, reaching out essentially to the people we represent. I don’t think we do enough of that; I didn’t do enough of that when I was a multicultural senator even though I really tried my best. I think getting those signatures, getting the advice, it really clues us into the student body and helps them get clued in to us.
Another part that a lot of people don’t realize about SGA is a lot of it is continuing what past SGAs have done, and maintaining good relationships with offices, and for me, the way the student body has changed over the course of my time here at APU really changing the way the student voice is interacting with offices. In my experience, I’ve seen offices that have kind of struggled with us or we’ve struggled with them so really striving to make peaceful amends but at the same time, saying that ‘As a student voice, this is our perspective and we want to find a way where we can best speak and where the offices that are out on campus can best receive’ because we wouldn’t want to mess up the relationship between students and administrators.
ZM: What are some of these offices that you would be looking to expand your relationships with in particular?
M: There’s a wide variety. Since my time coming here Campus Safety has really transformed in how it interacts with the student body, and right now I really look up to them; I really look up to the work that’s been done in office that’s a good example. The office of women’s development. I think they are a very good resource. The office of Title IX, in terms of reporting sexual harassment and sexual assault. Making that more of a name on campus, more of a resource for our students who are in troubling times.
Student Center for Reconciliation and Diversity, Dining Services, especially with dining services, I know there can be a disconnect between what students want and what’s happening, and oftentimes what the student body doesn’t know, is there is a lack of student workers or resources and that affects the hours, so really improving communications.
ZM: To touch upon some pressing issues to our community such as parking, food, chapel, have you considered which of these big questions you would like to tackle throughout your presidency, and if so, how?
M: Specifically addressing parking, insider’s tip: SGA has been really fighting for that for multiple years now. One thing that oftentimes as a student body we don’t know is how much the administration is also working towards it, which is so interesting, again, that disconnect in communication, that’s one thing I really want to improve. But actually to build a parking structure from the ground up, I think that’s something crazy.
Also with the university- they are making plans to better parking, so now I think the question is, okay, as a student body, here and now, we know that’s coming down the pipeline, so for here and now, what does it look like to change that? What does it look like to make that a conversation? What does it look like to not take no for an answer? Whether it changes the way that we do parking passes, especially for commuters; at a certain point in time while I was here, 40% of the student body was commuting. It is unfair for student spots to be taken. But at the same time, there are oftentimes students who aren’t able to park in their own living areas because of a lack of access. And so that could look like, ‘Hey, how do we open up a better system going from West to East? How do we find other parking lots? How do we build relationships with the neighboring businesses and areas in Azusa to better that parking so I think that’s one way of looking at it. And especially with my experience, knowing how complex it is, as opposed to wanting just better parking right off the bat, like I think seeing that chance on campus and adding that continued desire of the student body not being afraid to voice that. not being afraid to think creatively, I think that’s really important.
In terms of food and services, I think that looks like -again- thinking creatively with the office, asking what does it look like to run it at an optimal level, when we maybe don’t have everything we possibly can to get to that level. I think it looks like doing surveys, considering how our students are interacting with the hours, because if you’re a freshman and you don’t have a car, and you’re on campus on the weekends, and you don’t have the money to go out, you have your dining plan, that puts you in a complicated position. For athletes coming back from practice and some of the dining halls aren’t open, it really limits us. And it looks like really hearing the offices perspective, being able to bridge that to the student body and again, getting student perspectives as well as our own to continue the fight for better food at our school.
ZM: Do you think a year is enough to make a significant impact?
M: No, I don’t believe a year is enough time. However, SGA is very long term, and 25 percent of the work we do is for our year particularly, and 75 percent is going into the future, and me with my experience as a freshman, as a sophomore, learning how the school works, even though a year isn’t enough time, I already bring at least two years of knowledge and experience to where a year would be enough time; where I could hit the ground running; where I would know how to communicate with an office right off the bat and how to lead others in that as well.
I would say a year is not enough time, and as students that’s what we’re limited to and that’s a really cool thing, and sometimes a really hard thing. At the same time I have a lot of hope for what we can do; for all the experiences coming back with the senators. If I’m able to be SGA president with that experience, it wouldn’t just be a year, it would be multiple years of experience going into that.