Beverly “Bev” Banks and Kiersten Marsh are running for SGA with a focus on being LIT for UT. “LIT” in this case standing for leadership, integrity and teamwork.
Banks, junior in journalism and electronic media, is a senator for the College of Communication and Information. Marsh, sophomore in political science, is a senator for sorority village. They met while working on the Challenge campaign last year.
After serving in SGA for three years and in the executive branch last year, Banks said she became frustrated with the issues — specifically the lack of communication — in the organization.
“I love (SGA), and it’s great. There’s also a lot of problems, and a lot of them deal with the communication not only internally but externally within the organization. At that point, I thought a lot about either walking away or doing something about it, and so obviously I chose to do something about it,” Banks said. “That’s the reason I’m running because I want our organization to better communicate with students on campus and other organizations so that we can come together and not be so separated by organizational lines.”
Banks said a solution to one communication problem is to bring back SGA roundtables for students and SGA members to discuss what is happening in the organization.
Traditionally, the SGA president and vice president are seniors when they hold their position. As a sophomore, Marsh’s ability to fulfill the position has been questioned, but Marsh said that her passion, combined with Beverly’s leadership, should put those worries to rest.
“I’ve always wanted to be vice president and not anything else because of the passion I have developed for the legislative branch,” Marsh said. “I think Bev and I work incredibly well together … If it was anybody else, I wouldn’t be running this year. I think that it would have been something I would have waited (until) next year, but I believe wholeheartedly in what Bev can do, and I believe that with her help, I can take on this role a year early.”
Banks and Marsh said they believe that the culture on campus is not welcoming to all ideas. If elected, Marsh said they plan to change the culture through communication and leadership.
“My goal for next year, if we’re elected, is to start bringing about a campus culture change — to start bringing about that compromise that we don’t see on campus,” Marsh said. “That’s done through the communication … and just creating a culture of compromise starting from the top down and not only trying to be the leaders of SGA but being servant leaders.”
The Tennessee legislature recently allotted funds to create an intellectual diversity office on campus, but Banks said the office is not the correct step to welcoming more ideas on campus.
“In terms of the intellectual diversity office, we need to bring back the office that was there prior because that office was doing great work, and I think the legislators —they need to be hearing us because we’ve been telling them over and over that this office has worked for us. It’s done a lot of things for people on campus—especially minority students,” Banks said.
The campaign is using the acronym LIT to stand for leadership, integrity and teamwork. Marsh said the word is supposed to touch on fun and seriousness.
“LIT in itself kind of brings about a laugh and a joke, and that’s what we want. We want positivity on campus,” Marsh said. “I think it kind of gives both the impression that, yes, we’re fun and we can have a good time, and positive but also … we’re going to work hard towards these incredibly important goals.”
Banks said the acronym helps students approach an organization that is often seen as too formal.
“Our organization, quite frankly, is not an approachable organization, and the elections a lot of times are very … it’s just formal. So I thought, what can we do to make it more approachable?” Banks said. “It is a word that people use. It is lit, and you can say it when you’re going to fail a test, or you can say it when you’re just having a good time.”
SGA candidates often promise to accomplish goals for students that, in reality, may never happen. Banks and Marsh realize this and say that they want to be honest with the limits of SGA. Instead of promising a wet campus, they want to focus on smaller goals like lowering prices in the POD markets or changing bus routes.
“We have to be careful about what we promise to students because no one’s going to buy in if you’re promising things that aren’t going to happen,” Banks said.
Sexual assault and consent education are issues that are important to Banks and Marsh. There are online courses on consent that freshman must take, but Marsh said that it is not enough.
“That (consent education) should be face to face. You should be having those conversations with students in … a face to face interaction because those online things are easy to get around, and that message is so important that we need to make sure that every student coming in gets that message,” Marsh said.
Banks said their campaign is different not because of who they are but because of who is supporting them.
“This is not like a typical SGA campaign,” Banks said. “A lot of the folks that we have with us have never been in SGA, and that’s so refreshing because it’s people that have an outside perspective that we desperately need to break that bubble that SGA always has … We’re being real with people. I mean, I will be very open about mistakes our organization has made in this year alone, and it happens each year.
“It just happens, but we have to own up to those in order to move forward.”
Banks and Marsh want students to know that, at the core, the candidates are lit to run for office.
“We’re lit for UT,” Banks said, “and we want others to…”
“Be lit with us,” Marsh added.
