As CSG candidates are very busy this week doing some final campaigning, Her Campus was lucky enough to sit down the Cooper Charlton and Steven Halperin, the presidential and vice presidential candidates for Make Michigan. Keep reading to learn more about Cooper and Steven, as well as their ideas for CSG!
Her Campus: Where are you from?
Cooper Charlton: Hudson, Ohio, born and raised. But I took a post grad year after high school and lived in Toronto.
Steven Halperin: I’m from Harrison, NY. When I am an adult I plan to live in the same house I grew up in.
HC: What are your hobbies?
CC: Kite boarding. It’s wakeboarding but with a giant sail attached to your stomach using a harness. It’s comparable to windsurfing but the sail is in the air like a kite. I also enjoy reading, I’m kind of a nerd. I love Lord of the Rings.
SH: I love people. I love being around people and meeting people. I also love Lord of the Rings.
HC: What is your ideal first date?
CC: Dinner in a gazebo followed by some stargazing.
SH: Something outside. Something fun. A carnival. A festival of some sort. An art festival. LOL just kidding… a New York Rangers Hockey game.
HC: What are your career goals?
CC: I bounced back and forth quite a bit. First I wanted to do non-profit work and win a Nobel Prize. That was my thing when I was little. Then I wanted to do finance, then I wanted to do politics. Right now I want to do Venture Capital for tech start-ups because I think bringing an idea in to this world that wasn’t there before is very cool.
SH: Until the age of six I wanted to be a dog. I really just love meeting people and throughout my life I wanted to meet as many people as possible. It’s something that has been my calling my entire life. I just want to love others. So something in public service.
HC: Getting into the election, how was your Make Michigan team developed?
CC: To be honest, there were some last minute changes in the executive ticket and I was asked to run. I took a week to myself to reflect and see what would be the best thing for me career wise. I love the 931 athletes I represent right now, but having the opportunity to impact 43,000 students was too great to pass up and too great of an opportunity. This University has given me so much, and it was time for me to pay it forward. I had not met Steven before, but we sat down one night and talked. I knew that this is the kid I wanted to do this with. We have a lot of similarities and are very good friends now.
SH: My father passed away during my freshman year of high school. For me, I hit rock bottom after that. The last words he ever said to me were “Move big rocks.” This motivates me and empowers me. I feel that I have this connection with Cooper where he can help me achieve my life goal. He is an amazing leader and an even better friend.
HC: What is your most important goal if elected into CSG?
CC: When students were surveyed last semester, they were asked what one word comes to mind when thinking of The University of Michigan. They said ‘tradition.’ What I want to do with Make Michigan is I want to live up to that tradition and elevate the university back to the number one university in the country. I want to begin taking the steps in the right direction that demand not only academic excellence and athletic excellence but also emotional excellence. It is important for our students to feel safe, loved, and comfortable at the University of Michigan.
SH: Going off of that, I want people to generally look back after their time here and say, “Wow, those were the best four years of my life, I want to do that again. I am sad that I am leaving but I want to have a connection for the rest of my life.” I have wanted to go here since I was little; I liked the colors when I was three years old. I want people to come together around tradition and unite as one whole. There are people on campus who don’t feel loved and this troubles me. This hurts me and it makes me tear up, it is sad. This is unacceptable. This is my main goal. I want to make everyone as happy with Michigan as I am. Go Blue.
HC: A huge part of your platform is safety. What inspired this?
CC: Lack of student safety and safety in my relatives’ lives during their college experiences was negative, so safety is very close to my heart. I talk about how paramount student safety is on campus. How we want to increase student safety on campus is through more off campus lighting. If you take a second to look, you will notice our university is very dark at night. We want to expand the Night Owl to make sure when students are done studying or done with a social event or on a date they have a safe ride home and feel comfortable.
SH: The word comfortable is the most important part of safety. Physical, sexual, and mental. It covers all of them. If you feel comfortable in any given situation, this is the definition of safety.
HC: Generally, what makes your platform different from The Team?
CC: The actual goals and tangible steps we have in place to accomplish our overall vision.
SH: We know that everything on our platform we can do and we will do.
CC: You can see through this past year, when Make Michigan makes promises they follow through. We aim to make student life safer through safety and inclusivity. If you feel safe on campus, then the things that define you are also accepted on campus. We want to make student life just a little bit easier. If we can do that through more bike racks, through linking your CTools calendar in your iPhone, we want to do that. And the visionary thing that Make Michigan wants to do is create a sustainable and long term vision for the future that all students can get on board with. We want to create the pillars and build the leaders to carry on our values deep in to the future.
HC: What is something unique you can bring to CSG?
CC: Bridge, empathy, vision. I have this unique ability where I have a very visionary personality and visionary goals and I have an ability to make people arrive at the fact that they are important. I want to bridge people together through empathy and connections and allow them to move in the same direction because I can empathize and understand where they are coming from and move in a different direction. I want people to know that I am genuine and actually care about these things. I will lead them in the right direction and they can trust me. I am so passionate about it, it isn’t a façade. I have their best interests in mind.
SH: I am never going to stop being the guy that is smiling and joking around. While I try to always be happy, I do have something behind me that empowers me and that is the very serious and determined side of me. I want everyone here to be as happy as I am here. And that is what I can bring to CSG.
HC: Do you have anything else you would like our readers to know?
CC: I think it is important to know that just because we would have titles such as president and vice president, the only thing we want titles to do is demand that we represent the people we stand for. It puts you in the servitude of the people you are representing.
SH: I’m single.
During this election cycle, Her Campus at the University of Michigan is choosing not to endorse any political party on campus. We encourage all of our readers and the entire campus to explore each party’s platforms. You can check out our interview with The Team’s reps here! Don’t forget to vote in the CSG elections March 25th and 26th at vote.umich.edu!