Name: John Zang
Year: Senior
Major: International Politics
Hometown: Greensburg, Pa.
Meet John, a senior majoring in international politics who loves the people that make up the Penn State community. Learn more about what John’s position as UPUA’s Chief of Staff entails.
HC: Briefly describe your position as Chief of Staff.
John: The UPUA Chief of Staff is responsible for managing a wide variety of personnel within the student government Executive Board. Most of the responsibilities are centered on personnel and project management. I am also responsible for ensuring that everything that UPUA meets all of the goals that the President lays out during the course of the year. In addition to my internal role to UPUA, I am often responsible for representing UPUA to various student groups when the President is unable to go. While not explicitly tied to my position, I also serve on several administrative groups including the University Budget Planning Task Force and the Search Advisory Committee for the Executive Vice President & Provost. As well, I serve on several University Faculty Senate committees working on a variety of student issues.
HC: What is your favorite part of being Chief of Staff?
John: As Chief of Staff, I have the capacity to affect a broad range of policies that have a direct impact on the undergraduate student experience. While I don’t get to do as much programming or some of the more “fun” events for students, I’m involved in the discussions surrounding tuition, the board of trustees, the student code of conduct, future administrators, alcohol in residence halls, sustainability, etc. While the role explicitly gives me the ability to coordinate most of the activity of UPUA, the implicit responsibilities that come along with the position outside of UPUA in every aspect of Penn State.
HC: What is the hardest part?
John: There are two parts of what I do at Penn State at are particularly taxing to me. Dealing with a few students who value their personal stature more than the success of UPUA at times is a trying part of working with an elected body. On the Executive Board, I get to work with the President at the beginning of the year to appoint a staff full of people through a meritocratic system, evaluating students to fulfill roles that they are the best for, so the people working under me are all some of the best students at Penn State at what they do. That professionalism is not homogenous throughout UPUA, so dealing with politicians trying to be civil servants is at times difficult. The second part of the job that wears on me is dealing with the small number of faculty who take advantage of students who are not familiar with the academic rights guaranteed to them in Penn State policy. Every year I handle a select few instances of professors attempting to punish students with draconian attendance and exam policies that violate the policies that guarantee students equitable treatment. Those two things are really the most difficult parts of the job.
HC: If you could change anything about Penn State, what would it be and why?
John: I would change Penn States attitude toward change. Change in an entity of Penn State’s size is always difficult, but from my four-year experience here, it has seemed like there has always been a cultural resistance to development. Such resistance is not unique to Penn State by any measure, but as a whole, Penn State is very slow to adopt new approaches to pedagogy, technology, budgeting, governance, etc. I am not saying that there are not exceptions to that culture, and there are plenty of faculty, staff, students, and administrators who are dedicated agents of change, the greater culture at Penn State is generally more focused upon tradition than innovation.
HC: What do you love most about Penn State?
John: By far the best thing about Penn State is the people that make up the University community. The State College mayor, my associate dean, my best friends, dedicated alumni, and the many other people that I’ve worked with over the course of my four years have come to define my Penn State experience and because of that are the most important things to me. Penn State is different things to different people, but the University’s ideals bind us together in this great community. It is the people, the Penn Staters, which I love more than anything else.