Meet Alyssa, a senior in the College majoring in International Studies and minoring in Global Health. A native of Short Hills, New Jersey, Alyssa loves pizza, running, and traveling in addition to being President of College Council! Read on to learn more about Alyssa’s involvement and how College Council plays a role on Emory’s campus.
Weinstein with Former President Jimmy Carter
HCE (Her Campus Emory): When did you get involved in College Council (CC), and why did you do so?
AW (Alyssa Weinstein): I got involved in College Council my freshman year when I ran for a Sophomore Legislator position. My freshman year was a really rough transition to college for me, and I ended up becoming friends with a CC Freshman Legislator who told me how running for a position could give me the tools to fix a lot of the things that made my freshman year difficult. That freshman legislator is now my Vice President!
HCE: What is your favorite thing about CC?
AW: My favorite thing about CC is definitely the people. Of all the organizations on campus I’ve been a part of, CC is one of the closest knit groups I’ve gotten to be a part of. They inspire me at every single GBM and exec meeting with their ideas and hard work to improve our community. Anytime someone has a new initiative project, they’ll have numerous people on the council reaching out to them with advice and support and its a really special community I haven’t found anywhere else.
HCE: What drove you to run for President of CC?
AW: I would say one of the biggest things was having some older mentors on the council who encouraged me to run. Running for such a high-profile college-wide position was a really unnerving task to take on, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of friends and mentors. But, most importantly, I had felt that as Vice President, I had only just started to work on a lot of the projects I wanted to take on to improve CC and our campus. I remember the first time I wrote up my platform for the elections, and I easily had over five pages of ideas. I felt like I needed this year to continue to build on the success we had for the last council.
HCE: What is your specific role as President?
AW: My specific role is to represent the College of Arts and Sciences and to lead the Council in its executive and legislative operations. What that means in practice is that I meet with a lot of administrators to discuss the challenges faced by college students and I work with our executive board and our legislature to collect feedback on what students want to see changed on campus and to pass bills and fund projects to create those changes. This manifests itself in many ways, from reforming our budgeting process and monetary policies to the creation of new college-wide scholarships.
HCE: What are some of the biggest challenges you face as President?
AW: I would definitely say that one of our biggest challenges this year has been communication. We are constantly making new changes to our audit and budget processes to make them better, and it is always difficult to find the best way to communicate these changes so treasurers and club presidents can best understand the systems. This also applies to our events; all of our events from Culture Shock to Social Justice Week to monthly Chipotle Chats are paid for by all of our $92 student activity fees. We would love to have as many students as possible attend and participate in these events to get the most out of their money, but it is quite a challenge to best inform students that these events even happen.
HCE: What are some of CC’s goals for this year?
AW: We have a pretty broad range of goals, since most of our exec members are working on their own initiatives. I’m personally working on fundraising for a scholarship for students who take unpaid internships, which will be piloting this spring. I’m also working to better promote our newspaper program (check out free copies of the New York Times in the DUC, White Hall, and the bookstore!), streamline our auditing and budgeting processes, better communication through OrgSync, and improving transparency with more town halls throughout the year.
HCE: What are your plans post-Emory?
AW: I’m planning on either studying, working, or traveling abroad in some capacity, and then I’ll be working in consulting for Deloitte!
HCE: How can students get involved in CC this year?
AW: The biggest thing I can tell people is to run for positions! Elections are coming up in a few months, and CC gives you so many tools and resources to make a difference in our community. There also are always appointed positions available as well once elections are over. In the meantime, come to CC-sponsored events like Social Justice Week and Chipotle Chats to get a better idea of what we do!