Many of you know Harry Orbach-Miller from his recent campaign for Vice President of the USC. Harry is back (he never left, to be fair) and is running for Student Programs Officer.
You have a ton of experience. What experience that you’ve had do you think will be the most helpful in this position?
I think the thing that’s most relatable to the SPO portfolio is my role as chair to the student senators. Some people might ask, how is that relatable? In reality, I think advocacy is very similar to programming and the changes that are needed to the SPO portfolio as a whole are very reflective of that role. You have to be able to bring people together, and listen to other people’s perspectives and make sure they feel heard. And at the end of the day, you also have to be able to work with legislative bodies, and I think that’s one thing that’s been forgotten a lot with the SPO portfolio is that you have to work with council, and you should be having a positive relationship with council, and that’s one thing I’ve been able to do so well throughout my term as senator in the last few years is building those positive relationships, and making sure people feel heard, but also getting things done.
Our club system is a good example. There is so much positive energy right now that needs to be harnessed, but it needs to be harnessed to effective change. That means creating effective policy. And as someone who’s worked with staff, senior administration, and faculty to get them all on the same page with fall reading week, I think I’m the perfect person to do this with the club system.
What does the Student Programs Officer do?
When people talk about this, they talk about the four sections of Student Programs Officer. There’s peer support, there’s orientation, clubs, and general programming. But what I find when we talk about that is people focus too much on those sections, and don’t look at it from a holistic point of view. There’s so much integration between all the different sections, but we shouldn’t just be looking purely at them and saying “how can they be better,” we should be looking at them as a whole and saying what should be in there to begin with, and I think we don’t do enough of explaining that to students.
If you are elected, and you achieve one thing, what do you want that one thing to be?
I think the measure that I would use for success is how many people that weren’t involved before, were now involved. That’s the job of programs portfolio is to build that community at Western. And for me, the best way to do that isn’t for me to do the programming, but to work and empower others to help and achieve their own visions on campus. So the more people who program, and the more people who can talk positively about the USC, the better. Once someone has a bad experience, they talk with someone else, and it just kind of goes around the circle, even though only one of those people have actually been engaged. So the more people we can engage and give those positive experiences to, the more likely other people will want to engage. We should have more opportunities across our campus where more people feel comfortable to put their hand up and get involved, and if they put their hand up, they know they will be called on, and they know that there will be someone who is going to help them make their own vision. And that if they put their hand up and get involved, that there will be someone who will help make that a good experience. The system needs to have long term solutions. There aren’t a lot of events in my platform because I want to fix the system—anyone can plan a program, but the system has to work.
What do you wish more students knew about student senators?
That their voice makes a difference. That they actually have an opportunity to go into the process, and find ways to influence our campus. I would never have thought, as a first year, knowing no one on my floor, that four years later I would be in a fall reading break committee meeting voting yes.
So showing students that those opportunities exist, and making sure that those opportunities are shown to a wide variety of people. We go back to that cyclical talk, where it’s the same people who are fit into all those different roles. We need to make sure that there are more people across the board who can fit into these roles.
One thing more tangibly, is not how their voice matters, but how to get their voice heard. One thing I want to do is a “meet your counselor” event, because right now, no one knows who represents them. You can’t feel represented if you don’t know who represents you. Even if that’s just putting a face to a name, that’s important.
How is your relationship with the USC exec going to work after the recent (heated) USC election?
One thing that we do is that we view student government elections, not as bitter, tough elections, but as primary elections, like in the United States. At the end of the day, we’re all on the same team. What divides us is so much more insignificant than what actually brings us together. The one that I think is so powerful, and one of the reasons that Tobi and Landon ran, is that they wanted to see a different kind of student government. They got 50% of the vote, and we got 40. I’m elected to this position, that means that 90% of the people who voted in the election can look at next year’s executive and say, “I know that my voices and perspectives are in that executive.” And I think that’s really powerful.
We shouldn’t look at it like there are different parties in the elections. There is one party, and that’s the student’s’. And by running here, I’m saying that it’s not about who wins any election, it’s about what’s best for students.
Two huge issues this year have been club’s space and club’s food—what will you do to change this?
One is to change the mentality of how we build those relationships. So, if you look at the recent Gazette article, “USC Responds to SOU.” One of the lines is that “if they’re really unhappy with the system, they can choose to de-ratify and operate independently of the USC.” And the answer should never be that. You should never say, “if you don’t like it, there’s the door.” You should say “there’s the door to my office, and let’s talk about it. If you push people out of a feedback loop, then they’re not going to want to come back.
I’m someone who reads the USC Board of Directors minutes, and I’ve been to every council meeting this year. And I didn’t see that food policy passed in either place. And it’s because it wasn’t done that way. It was just implemented. We have to do so much better, bringing people into the process and asking, “What would you like to see?” All the counselors would have voted no on that policy. There’s a reason why almost no one ran for council this year, and so many people ran for senate. We showed them that they could have a voice in the process, and that being on senate gave you a greater voice, which is something they clearly didn’t feel on council.
I want people to feel like they have a voice in the portfolio. At the end of the day, this is the University Students’ Council, because it belongs to the students, and not just the five executives, and I think we need to bring that back.
Many students feel disconnected from the USC and feel it doesn’t represent them. What will you do to try to ensure that the USC represents more, if not all, students?
Unfortunately, often times, the USC is portrayed as this fortress, and where once you’re inside, it’s wonderful and magical, this amazing experience, all those profile pictures you see so many times. But for everyone else on the outside, it’s a daunting thing that no one can ever break into. I think the role of this portfolio, across the board, is to be able to bring down those walls a little bit, and make sure people feel that they can get inside, so it’s not some daunting fortress, it’s a place where everyone feels welcome. That there’s a place for their ideas and a place for their vision, and it’s not just that someone else is gonna take their vision and do it for them, it’s that they’re going to help make it a reality for them and that’s what needs to be done.
Something I want to create is the “Student Priority Fund.” We should have a fund where we can have students take the money, and show us what they want to do, and host their own events. It comes back to engaging students that we would not usually engage.
We don’t have one student experience at Western, and our programs should reflect that.