The DePauw: Tell us about yourself.
Erika Killion: I’m Erika. I’m a senior. I am a French and Economics double major, philosophy minor, honors scholar. I’m a military brat, so I have moved all over. My dad is in the air force. My parents are from Indiana and my mom went to DePauw which is how I found out about it. I came here not knowing anyone or very much at all about the school and got incredibly involved right away. So that has been the greatest part about the DePauw experience - how I was able to get involved in the community. I do a bunch of things now, student government being the biggest thing I do, but other stuff. I am very involved in Outdoors Club, I am in charge of the CATS sober monitors program this year. I am a Rho Gamma for Panhellenic recruitment. Alpha Psi Omega, the theatre honors society. I do work study in the theatre. I don’t know. I’m all over campus.
TDP: Is there anything you are particularly passionate about?
EK: Oh gosh. Everything with student government. I could talk about student government and general involvement on campus forever. I have done a bunch of different community service stuff, whatever fits my schedule, and I care a lot about community in general on DePauw’s campus, trying to build that community on our campus, and trying to build that community with the Greencastle area through service and through the events we share with the town. But trying to make those relationships possible.
TDP: Do you have any specific goals that you want to accomplish this year?
EK: A lot. Going from broad to very specific ones. Broadly, I want to make sure that the exec board on DSG functions well and that we set it up well for the future. That looks like making sure that we set very smart goals, for the exec board, for things that we want to accomplish individually. I want to support the VPs as they decide what their mission is for the year. And then I want to create some sustainable change in DSG for the coming years. So we are getting rid of the general assembly meetings, there will be an email going out to club presidents detailing what is going to happen, but we won’t have monthly mandatory meetings for Orgs, and I want to set up a system that works for them and works for student government for several years to come. And I want better communication within the student government internally and with the administration and the students externally, so that we can set up lines of communication that work for the future and that work for us very well. And then more specifically, I have a lot of, I guess, little things that I want to do. I want to make a calendar for all of DePauw so that students can figure out what events are happening, and it’s all centralized and it works. And then other little things. I was just talking to someone about how we would really like to make campus more physically accessible to everyone. So a lot of that takes money for ramps and elevators, and all of that. But something small I would like to accomplish this year is making a map available online and at the admissions building that shows where the ramps and elevators are. So even though it is tough to get around campus, you can.
TDP: What do you think the best work strategy to accomplish all these goals is going to look like? For you, DSG, and the student government?
EK: In the first two weeks of school we have to set very, very clear expectations. I think we have all heard of the SMART goals, specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, timely goals and we are having retreats with exec and senate this year so we have several hours where we sit down and talk about what we want to accomplish, but it has to be action plan driven. So during our first meetings on those dates we need to set goals on the calendar and really make sure we are all working towards being timely and we don’t let the end of the semester and end of the year sneak up on us.
TDP: What do you hope to bring to the campus as president this year?
EK: I was talking about community, I want this to be an open community. I want people to talk to me, and I had some freshman come talk to me after the speech at convocation and that was phenomenal. That’s what I want for the rest of the year, is people coming to me with concerns and issues. We are trying to do a lot of preventative- I don’t know if preventative is the right word- but preventative meetings and planning so that we can take care of student concerns and needs before they become too much of a problem. I was talking to President McCoy and he said that DACA and other big ticket issues are going to come up this year. We are going to have to figure out how that works. I want to build a community that is going to be supportive of students when they need it and I really want people to feel comfortable here. I want everyone to feel like they can talk to each other and student government about problems.
TDP: Do you have any advice for students this year?
EK: Get involved, right! The activities fair is Friday, the 25th and I want people to go to that, and if they don’t go or they later realize they want to get involved, I want them to reach out. I really want everyone to have something. And you don’t find it right away, I wasn’t involved in student government freshman year at all. It might take some time and you must try it out. And especially, speaking as a Rho Gamma too, I want people to get involved in things before fraternity and sorority rush happens. I want people to be involved and not wait for Greek Life to be where they find community. Get involved.
TDP: Is there anything you want to say?
EK: Well, if you could put in my email, I do really want people to talk to me. And I want to be building things that work. I don’t necessarily feel like I need to reinvent the wheel but I want the next student government president and executive board to feel like they have a very solid foundation and expectations to work off of. I want to hear from people. I think that’s a big thing.
Contact Erika at ekillion_2018@depauw.edu or through her official DSG email at dsg_president@depauw.edu.