(upbeat music) (graphic pops) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal," I'm Steve Kendall.

Like many universities, Bowling Green State University has what's called shared governance, involving the staff, the faculty, and the students.

We're joined today by members of the undergraduate student government at Bowling Green State University.

Joining us are Heidi Gasser, the President of BGSU Undergraduate Student Government, Jacob Irelan, Director of Marketing and Engagement, and Gyllien Anderson, Speaker of the Student Senate, Undergraduate Student Senate.

So thank you all for being here, appreciate this.

Kind of to start out, sort of tell us how each of you got here and how you're involved and why you're involved.

So Heidi, talk about why you're in student government and how you got involved in it.

- Thank you so much for having us, Steve.

We're so honored to be here.

And one of the reasons that I really enjoy undergraduate student government is because we get to spread the message about how we care about students, but also we are students.

So I am a political science, philosophy, economics, and law major.

I also do a little bit of stuff in nonprofit administration and journalism.

So that political science is what I think sticks out to a lot of people because they're like, oh, undergraduate student government, government politics.

But really I just love the people and I love when I learn from other students.

And I also hope that maybe along the way I can teach my peers a thing or two.

And I think that's what makes our organization at Bowling Green State University so special is because we have a team and we all learn from each other just so much every day.

So the presidential role, it's really fun, but it's fun because I have really awesome people doing it with me.

- Now, when you were, before you got to BGSU, were you involved in like your student government at your high school or anything, or is this something that you developed when you got here?

- Yeah, definitely something that I developed when I got here because I remember I always thought that student council sounded a little interesting when I was about to make that transition into college.

Beause I went to high school 20 minutes away from here at Anthony Wayne High School.

And I loved getting involved at high school.

I was in some clubs, I was in orchestra, band, I rode a little bit as a sport.

But I would say the student government piece happened really naturally.

I actually was writing an article on undergraduate student government my sophomore year.

And then vice, she was the Director of Sustainability and then she was Vice President and now she's graduated.

Carly Hitchcock, I heard her passion while I was talking to her as a journalism student.

And just seeing her passion inspired me to apply.

And then I interviewed with Emily Jerome and then I guess the rest is history.

- Yeah, not bad.

And Jacob, tell us your story about how you got to where you are today.

- [Jacob] Yeah, well, so I'm majoring in visual communication technology and I'm majoring in computer science.

And I was about like sophomore year, I made like the switch from a major in computer science to visual communication technology.

And I guess I impressed our Past President, Emily Jerome.

She came up to me at the end of sophomore year and she was like, "Hey, how would you like to help "with marketing and student engagement?"

Mostly marketing at that point.

And I was like, "Oh, sure."

I love student government.

I was involved in student government in high school, student council, and I was like, "Maybe this is my way to get into it."

And I just fell in love with it last year and I'm glad that Heidi asked me to come back and yeah.

- Yeah, and we'll get into like what each of your roles are in a little while too, because obviously there's a lot more underneath the titles that you have.

Gyllien, kind of tell us how you got to this point.

- [Gyllien] Absolutely, so I'm a double major in psychology and popular culture with a minor in creative writing.

But I've always had a passion for like leadership and mentorship and pretty much like setting up for like progress to be made in the future and like continuing to like expand people's experiences.

And that's really what undergraduate student government is.

And I always wanted to get involved with it in high school, but I never really had the opportunity.

But I was in 4-H for a very long time, club president, junior fair board for Portage County Randolph Fair.

And I've always been very involved.

And so I actually met the president my freshman year at a bingo game.

It was Zach Knowson was president at the time.

And I ran into him again at Campus Fest and he was like, "Oh, you should get involved in USG."

And so that was kind of my experience.

I also interviewed with Emily Jerome.

We'll all name drop her.

(laughing) - [Steve] There's a thread running through here.

- [Gyllien] Yes.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

- [Gyllien] But it ended up being one of the best decisions I've ever made was joining USG.

- [Steve] Now, when we talked about now, obviously you're elected, you have to run for the role, the position.

Yeah, and probably being the president of the student Senate, that's an elected sort of role too.

Jacob, you're kind of an appointee.

Is that where you didn't have to run to be director of marketing or run for office kind of?

- [Jacob] Yeah.

- [Steve] So what is that?

Okay, so as you start to do that, that process is a little political, not in the sense that we talked about politics at the national and state level, but talk about your experience about running for that office.

I mean, you obviously have to reach a lot of students and it's like any other constituency, you can't meet every single one of them.

So talk about the process that you guys went through to become elected to the positions that you hold.

- This is a really good question.

And I love, again, that you're asking this because we have different layers of sort of legitimacy that are built into the organization of undergraduate student government.

So Vice President, Elise Adrian and I ran uncontested and it's been that way, I think since COVID, am I correct in saying that?

So appealing to the constituency, you didn't have as much of that competition because it's in the word uncontested.

My greatest dream is that every election we see from Elise and I onwards is that we see it contested because that means that you have a lot of interested, confident talent.

And I feel so grateful to have this trust on Elise and I, but yeah, we submit the ballot to our advisor, Sarah Jordan, who works very closely with the, well, she is in the office of student engagement, but she knows the people to contact.

I think marketing and brand strategy were in the building for that.

- [Steve] Sure, down the hall.

- [Heidi] Yes, just down the hall here.

And then we send out a ballot, not only with the presidential ticket, but then everyone gets elected as a senator.

And then that's where someone like Jacob can be appointed after he was already elected as a senator.

And then Gyllien will probably wanna talk about how we have internal elections that nominate the speaker as well.

- So Jacob, you actually did run for office as well.

- [Jacob] Yeah.

- [Steve] Gotcha, okay.

I wasn't aware of that.

So yeah, we'll talk about that process too, because being a student senator, again, you're trying to deal with everybody on campus to some degree.

Was your experience different than hers in terms of contesting?

Because obviously there was more than one candidate to be a student senator here at the university.

- Yeah, so I ran for like a senator at a large position and there were several candidates that ran.

And I was running more on the position of, I'm gonna run for like, engagement-wise, like how can I help better the student experience on campus?

So more like individualized for that versus how he was running on, how do you know he's running on campaigns such as sustainability- - [Steve] A broader- - A broader context as well.

- [Steve] Yeah, more, yeah.

- So I would go up to people.

I had more like just like approachable, like I'm gonna talk to you, build a relationship and stuff like that.

So that's how I guess it went around a campaign.

- Yeah, and your experience, Gyllien?

- [Gyllien] Yeah, so I also run a senator at large in the election in the spring.

But then the like very first meeting we have with our new administration every year, we do internal elections.

So we elect the speaker of the Senate position.

We also elect our internal committee chairs, which are Internal Affairs, Academic Affairs and Student Affairs.

And then so within those, you like run, you're like, I'm interested in doing this.

And then you would go up and give a speech to the Senate and like explain why you think you're qualified for that role.

And people can nominate you or you can nominate yourself.

But then with the speaker of the Senate role, I then take over from the vice president and start running the meeting from then on out because that is in my role of just like one of the main things I do every single week is run our General Assembly meetings.

- Okay, good, when we come back, we can delve a little more deeply into some of this as well.

Back in just a moment with the representatives of Bowling Green State University Undergraduate Student Government, Heidi Gasser, Gyllien Anderson and Jacob Irelan here on "The Journal."

Back in just a moment.

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guests from the BGSU Undergraduate Student Government, Heidi Gasser, the President of USG, Gyllien Anderson, the Speaker of the Undergraduate Student Senate and the Director of Marketing and Engagement for the Undergraduate Student Government, Jacob Irelan.

One of the things, of course, we talked about the fact that we're not as political.

You're trying to stay away from that sort of thing.

But when you sit down and you're trying to run student government and as you go along, or as you were running for the positions, are there constituencies, are there groups that say, this is what I'd like, this is what I don't want you to do.

Is that something that you deal with?

Even at this level, there are people with ideas and agendas and pretty serious about what they want versus what they don't want or what they don't want somebody else to have or do or whatever.

Is that, that is unfortunately part of this?

- [Heidi] Unfortunately and fortunately.

But the unfortunate part, I'll start with first, because we are a bipartisan organization, which is interesting 'cause that's different from nonpartisan.

We have an organization called BGSU Votes that is nonpartisan.

Everyone should vote.

We want everyone to get engaged.

USG feels the same way.

And we're allowed to take a stance on something.

So I have an agenda as a single individual, but we certainly have many groups on campus who under this kind of umbrella, hopefully inspiration of undergraduate student government, we can uplift.

So if you want some concrete examples, the BG Socialists hosted a event, a humanitarian fundraiser for the conflict in the Middle East.

And I've talked with their leaders and I decided to attend in a personal capacity.

But also when I decided to go to that event, there's Heidi Gasser and there's Heidi Gasser who is involved in undergraduate student government.

And I felt comfortable going up to one of our law enforcement officers.

I believe he's in a leadership role.

His name was John.

And he was a lovely gentleman.

And we had a great conversation about what it means to protect the rights of people that are in surrounding areas.

And it was a concert music, right?

But then also making sure that these people that are attending this event feel safe, are safe and are exercising their rights to hold such an event.

- [Steve] Sure.

- [Heidi] Yes.

So I think an example like that can describe the nuance almost better than any specific rule expectation or regulation for a constituency because undergraduate student government, we are not everything, but we support students that have passions.

And we call ourselves the bridge between students and administration.

- Right, yeah, and we can get talk about that too because I mentioned shared governance in the intro and that is part of what the university does.

Yeah, and of course, obviously outreach and engagement.

You're always out there trying to get more people involved and of course, obviously push out to what student government is doing.

So talk about your role in that.

- Yeah, so it's like a little bit of going out there, going to the volunteer and involved in and networking a lot of people.

I know, I want USG to have the best representation of all parts of campus.

So whether it's getting maybe a representative from inter-fraternity council or representative for a black student union or any organization across campus like Res Life, I want their voice to be heard.

So I'm gonna, I personally like to go up and make that connection with them to let them know that, hey, we want your group or organization's voice to be at BUSG because it's the whole undergraduate student government.

It's not just a certain group of people.

So that and then also with the marketing side of it, I'm making like graphics, I'm emailing people, like the correct people or how do you assimilate the correct people to email.

So just so that our like message is like out there and effectively and what we wanna say and represent for students.

- Yeah, 'cause obviously a lot of information to get out to people so they know what's going on and then how they can, how it affects them, how they can involve that sort of thing.

- [Jacob] Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And Gyllien, obviously you're in charge of the Student Senate.

I'm hoping you're gonna tell me that it isn't quite as entertaining as what we see at the national level or the state level.

So what is that role like for you in terms of when you open up the meetings and say, okay, we're gonna roll, what's that like for you?

- Well, I mean, we are very much so like on a much smaller scale.

We're working on expanding our Senate a lot.

We have some really exciting changes that we're hoping to make in the next couple of weeks.

- [Heidi] What are those changes?

I think it'd be cool to talk about a couple.

Constitution and bylaws, baby.

- Yes, we're updating our Constitution and bylaws, which is the duty of our Internal Affairs Chair, Abby Berger.

And one thing that we're doing is expanding our Senator-at-Large seats, our student unions.

We each are doubling a lot of these different Senator seats so that we can have much more representation because we've had a complete surge in interest.

So within my role, I do all the interviews to bring new Senators in.

And I don't wanna turn people away when they have a passion and an interest to have their voices heard and help to make other people's voices heard.

And voices being heard is definitely the big part of the partisanship of our organization is every Senator has a right to author legislation and try to pass these different things to make change and see change happen.

And also every Senator has a right to say no or abstain from voting.

And that's all kind of represented in our Senate and each of the different like internal elections that we do as far as what people have written and what people want to get out there and have heard.

- Now, when you mentioned the representation, so what currently would be like the criteria?

So what areas have already designated, they have an opportunity to elect a student Senator from this particular organization group.

What are some of the, how is that divided up?

Is it, you mentioned you're at-large, is everybody at-large or are there people that represent a certain segment of certain groups that have representation, is that how it works?

- [Gyllien] Yeah, there are specific constituencies.

We have like off-campus Senator seats.

Residence life is also kind of in the works right now as far as how we're gonna have that representation.

But we have Greek life, like we talked about in terms of council and each of like our student unions, queer trans student union, Asian student union, black student union, Latino student union those all have opportunities to elect Senators to sit in on our meetings.

So some of the Senator seats are elected by, they like apply and then they do an interview with me and then we decide then where they would be a best fit for.

But then we also have those that are appointed by certain constituencies.

- Okay, yeah, and how many are there right now in the student Senate, how many individuals?

I know I put you on the spot, is it, but it's, yeah.

- [Gyllien] I wanna say 35 ish, somewhere in there.

- Yeah, so it's a good size group with lots of viewpoints and lots of ideas and things.

When we come back, you guys can think about these, we're just about the end of the segment.

When people bring things forward in the student Senate, how does that process work?

Because obviously you have an issue, if you talked about the voting initiative where everybody can get behind that.

Some of the other things, obviously there are statewide issues that are going on in Columbus that you guys weigh in on.

I'm assuming that kind of thing.

So we can talk a little bit about that process and how you go about moving something from, someone says, "Hey, I've got an idea.

"I think we should do this."

Whether it's a student Senator or it's your administration, talking about that.

So we can talk about that when we come back.

Back in just a moment with the representatives of BGSU Undergraduate Student Government here on "The Journal."

You're with us here on "The Journal."

Our guests are Heidi Gasser, Gyllien Anderson and Jacob Irelan from the BGSU Undergraduate Student Government.

Heidi, talk about the fact, obviously people come forward with ideas.

Constituents, senators, other people.

How do you handle those issues when someone says, "Well, I think student government should get behind this."

Or, "We should pass a resolution to do that."

Or, "Why are we involved?

"Why do we pass a resolution for this?"

So talk about that process and how you manage that.

And obviously Gyllien, you're gonna deal with that too because that's where the voting would then take place.

How do you balance that with, because everybody's got an issue with something, obviously.

So how do you manage that and keep everybody involved and yet, there's some things obviously you can't get involved in as representatives of the university and that sort of thing.

So talk about how that works.

The barriers, the guidelines, the area you work within.

- I like the guidelines because we're kind of navigating barriers, but then also you have to decide what battle you wanna fight and break down the barrier or be like, "Oh, this barrier is actually here "because there's some wisdom involved in it."

So we're getting into initiatives here, like what the heck does an undergraduate student government actually do?

Lots of things, event planning, advocacy, that can happen in a meeting.

Vice President Elyse Adrian and I get the immense privilege of meeting with President Rogers once a month.

We also just sit in rooms with administrators.

I hear that they're not administrators, but our highest governance here at the Bowling Green Institution is our board of trustees.

They don't always walk among students because they're incredibly gifted, busy people with really richly scheduled lives.

So that student representation might look like, President Rogers also serves as a bridge.

- [Steve] Kind of a liaison between the board because they're not on campus every day, obviously.

- [Heidi] No, no, and that's, they have this wisdom that they're able to share, but then also hopefully so do we, in a sense.

So we talk with the president, President Rogers, about a lot of things.

We're very passionate about state advocacy and actually undergraduate student government is planning two advocacy trips with our director of state relations and like government relations, Hannah.

She works down in Columbus and she sort of lobbies on behalf of university higher education.

So that's interesting because we like to advocate that higher education is something that matters more than perhaps we think that representation is getting echoed in Columbus, right?

But then it can also look like something as micro as parking, that might feel micro to administration, but parking- - [Steve] Is a big thing.

- [Heidi] It's a big thing because you think it's just a car that you're moving to a certain location and then you walk, but that's also time for people.

Time is precious and we understand as students that maybe walking or biking somewhere, that's a solution, but then also you had to park your car and there's an opportunity for a ticket.

- [Steve] An opportunity for, that's a good way to put it.

- [Heidi] An opportunity for a ticket.

And an opportunity to solve problems.

So I'm really passionate about transportation.

I'm really passionate about civic engagement.

Jacob is working on student employment.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- [Heidi] Yeah.

- [Jacob] Yeah, I'm very going into like this mission.

I wanted to also, instead of also being like a marketing engagement, I also want my senior year to be passionate about something like student engagement, which I've been advocating for since I've been in Bowling Green and I'm really looking for maybe to get benefits for student employment, whether that be maybe something involving like a meal this way for student employees for certain criteria.

Just something to like, you know, say, hey, we see what you're doing and the word stuff like that and we appreciate that.

And if we can like get those funds, stuff like that, that'd be like awesome.

- Yeah, and you mentioned the advocacy part and that is obviously, because overall, what you're trying to do is make sure that the student experience here and the university is very good at that, but that their voices are heard on all of these issues that may not flow to the surface as obviously, as you said, the trip to Columbus, where legislators think maybe they know what's going on in terms of how things should run at a university and you can go down there and give them, well, here's our perspective on how this works or what isn't working, that kind of thing that they may or may not be aware of.

They think they know or they've heard from different constituencies.

When things move to the point where now the student Senate is looking at them, how do you manage that?

Because obviously, you're gonna have people with very strong ideas about certain things and want action on them and want everybody behind them and want it done right now.

So talk about managing that group because obviously, you can't keep, which I think you guys have found out is in elected positions, you can't keep everybody happy all the time, it just doesn't happen.

- [Heidi] Because everyone's not happy, but everyone is welcome to the table and you specialize and get involved.

- [Steve] And that's what, yeah.

- [Heidi] So how do we do that?

- [Steve] Yeah, so talk about that process, how you entertain everyone at the same, in terms of entertaining their ideas, not entertain them, but you allow them to bring their ideas forward and yet, maybe it isn't something that's gonna get support from enough people to move it forward.

So talk about handling that process from your position.

- [Gyllien] Yeah, absolutely, so in the three years that I've had this position as the Speaker of the Senate, we've never gotten super rowdy or passionate about anything.

- [Steve] Well, what was the fun of being there then?

No, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.

- [Gyllien] The fun is in the change, the fun is in the change that we see.

- [Steve] There's still time, you got a few months though, just kidding.

- [Gyllien] I will make it rowdy, I will make it crazy.

- [Steve] Okay.

- [Gyllien] But it's like, after the first reading of any presented statement or legislation, there's always opportunity for public questions, where the senators can ask questions about legislation or point out any errors or things like that, but it's also equal time to do that privately.

So senators can approach the author of a statement and be like, hey, I think this could be a little bit different or this is how I kind of disagree or think that this could potentially be changed or expanded to represent more or however that change may be seen.

But there is plenty of opportunity for people to have their voices heard and that's also where the beginning stages of that authoring comes from the internal committees that we have.

So a lot of times, it'll start with an idea and then it'll be taken to those committees that happen immediately after our general assembly meetings and then that's where the ideating happens, that's where the different opinions come in.

And then that's how people start to be like, oh, I wanna help author that or I wanna sponsor that.

- [Heidi] What are we authoring and event planning?

Because we do a bunch of different projects and it almost gets overwhelming.

- [Jacob] Yeah, I feel like event planning, you're talking about events we wanna do, it's coming up and stuff like that.

I mean, we just said- - [Steve] So what events rise to the top?

How does that process work?

We got like about a minute and a half, so you're probably gonna get the last word, that's okay.

- [Jacob] So there's definitely like initiatives that I would say that Heidi and Elise were pushing when they ran for president as well.

So some events will like, regard around that, like this past Wednesday, we said Symposium on Sustainability where we invited a bunch of student organizations that are like environmental adjacent or service adjacent and then we also had like a focus group.

So that's one of those areas where the event planning comes into place.

But honestly, if someone has an initiative and they wanna like, let's say create like a forum on maybe, let's say the upcoming elections and they wanna have speakers come in, we'll facilitate that as a bipartisan organization.

But just so that student voice and those voices are heard, we'll host that event.

And then we usually have like a mid-service as well, just where a bunch of organizations that come together and network, learn about each other.

And that's really what undergraduate student like wants to do, just bring a bunch of student voices together.

- [Steve] Get everybody together to hear each other's ideas and yeah.

- [Heidi] And maybe politely disagree.

And that's the fun part, genuinely.

- [Steve] To give a forum where people can express thoughts that may be different than the person next to them, but at the same time, do it in a way that everybody can hear each other and listen, I guess.

- [Heidi] And we create the best out of it because you heard everything, took it into account and created regardless.

- [Steve] Great, great.

Well, thank you so much for coming on.

It's a real insight and it makes you feel good, the fact that you guys are there and it sounds like you're really passionate about this and really representing the students and the university well as well.

So thank you so much for doing this.

Appreciate it.

- [Heidi] Thank you so much for having us.

- [Steve] And feel free to let us know whenever you have something you wanna talk about.

We'll have you on to talk about that.

It's always, door's always open.

So good, good.

You can check us out at wbgu.org and you can watch us every Thursday night at 8 p.m. We will see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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