Meet TCNJ’s girl bosses, Brooke and Patty. In April 2018, Brooke Chlebowski and Patty Kou were elected as TCNJ’s president and vice president of the student body. Since then, they’ve been committed to making a difference for current and future students.
Chlebowski started her Student Government career as a general member, and was elected as a senator for the school of education her sophomore year. That spring she ran for vice president of governmental affairs, and ultimately became the executive president. “I think that I had a really fulfilling experience at TCNJ through all of my involvements, I’m just a really big fan of the school.” Chlebowski is also the president of Unified Sports, an ambassador, an orientation leader and involved in greek life.
Kou got started with Student Government her freshmen year on class council and moved to a cabinet position before deciding to run with Chlebowski earlier this year. “Student government is definitely a privilege,” says Kou. Like Chlebowski, Kou is an ambassador, an orientation leader and involved in greek life. Kou is also a member of the Chinese Student Association and Barkada. Aside from her on campus involvements, Kou has also been interning with the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce all year.
The dynamic duo met at Leadershape in 2017, an annual leadership program for TCNJ students. “We recognized each other’s strengths and also our weaknesses and where we balanced each other out. I think we also saw a big ambition and drive to change TCNJ for the better,” Chlebowski says. “I think that we really have a drive to advocate for others and we both saw that in each other and wanted to use our strengths together.” From then on, they’ve been an unstoppable team. Kou says, “we realized that we just really meshed well together.”
So far, the pair has made progress in providing gender inclusive housing to first year students, and they campaigned to lift the club sports memorandum. Because of this, students can now submit a club sport they would like to see on campus to the Sports Advisory Council. Another major goal that Chlebowski and Kou are working towards is creating a commuter lounge on campus.
If TCNJ students could know anything about our president and vice president, they would want people to know that their door is always open. “We love it when any student reaches out to us with anything they feel that we could help them with,” says Chlebowski. “We love when we meet new people, it’s not even like you have to come to us if there is an issue, you can just come say hi! I think that’s why we became ambassadors or orientation leaders we just enjoy meeting friendly new faces” says Kou.