Name: Kishane Patel
Major/Minor: Political Science major with a minor in Criminal Justice
Year: Junior
Her Campus: How are you involved on campus at UWF?
Kishane Patel: I am involved in the Student Government Association and have been since freshman year. My freshman year I was chair of the Freshman Committee. Then, I was elected Senator my sophomore year, sworn in as a senator, but then was asked to be Chief of Staff by the Student Body President who had won that election. After serving a year as Chief of Staff, I ran for Vice President and that is how I landed here.
My other campus involvement includes UWF Men, which is a men’s empowerment network. We mentor freshman men who come into college, we give them guidance and direction for college. I have also involved myself in Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. I am a very proud and active member in this fraternity. My fraternity has the highest IFC GPA and we are the only UWF fraternity with a household. I am also involved in a couple honor societies, Sigma Alpha Pi honor society and Phi Eta Sigma honor society. I have also involved myself in CAB as the Co-Sponsorship Chairman. My role in that was to have events that we could organize with different organizations so that we could get other organizations names out.
Student Body Vice President: Kishane Patel (Courtesy of Kishane)
HC: Since you are so involved on campus, do you have time to do anything off campus?
KP: Yes, I also work outside of UWF. I work at Men’s Warehouse as a wardrobe consultant, and have been working there my past three years of college. I have really enjoyed working at Men’s Warehouse, because it has a great sense of professional networking and professional attire. I think professional attire is really important for students who are going into the professional atmosphere.
I am also an active community member. I serve as the Youth Volunteer Chair for the Gulf Coast Indian Association, and what we do is promote cultural awareness and hold cultural and religious events. I was also a co-founder of a company called Xswizit, which is a company that focuses on inspiring members of society through movement. What we did was sell merchandise and whatever proceeds we made on that we would donate it to charitable organizations and around the world for natural disasters. I also just recently got involved with AMIkids Pensacola. Which is a great organization that focuses on helping youth who have family issues or are at risk of not being successful in school get on the right track.
I also like to involve myself with local and state political campaigns. I really enjoy being involved in a political atmosphere.
HC: What would you say you are passionate about in life? Whether it be on campus or in your off-campus life.
KP: I would say I am very passionate about the people around me. One of the things I really strive on is to make sure that other people are successful. It is good to see the whole team winning and everyone around you doing well. My other passion is cultural acceptance, I really think sometimes it is hard for different people to accept others culture and religion and the ways they do things. But I have come to this understanding that everyone has different ways of doing things and that they should be accepted. Whether you do something one way and it’s different from mine, I still accept it and appreciate it no matter how different.
I will say like the very basic thing that I am passionate about is SGA. I really enjoy the impact that we can make in student government for our campus. Some of the things we have worked on this year is improving dining experience. We have significantly made some changes with the dining service provider. We have also made some improvements with campus safety by adding some extra lighting and blue lights across campus.
Kishane Patel, proud to be a brother of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity (Courtesy of Kishane)
HC: What is a motto or quote you try to live by?
KP: Oh that’s easy! Attitude determines altitude.
HC: Is that by somebody or something you just came up with?
KP: Honestly, I don’t know. It is something that throughout high school my best friend and I would say to each other when things started to get tough. The attitude we have towards a situation is how high we will get past it. How high we will climb up the ladder is based on how we approach situations with our own personal attitude. I continuously go back to that quote whenever I am feeling down about anything.
HC: What are your future goals? What do you plan to do with your political science major?
KP: To get my undergraduate degree of course, and then I want to go to law school. I hope to obtain my law degree and practice corporate or civil law. I really love Pensacola and hope that I can continue to serve the community in the future.
HC: Lastly, is there anything I didn’t ask that you want people to know about you?
KP: I am really approachable and very open. They can always come up to me and talk about questions or concerns they have about campus. Side note though, I love wearing ties and I love chicken wings, specifically Buffalo Wild Wings. It is always a good week if I have made it to Buffalo Wild Wings!
Kishane Patel sporting a tshirt for his company Xswizit, that donates their merchandise proceeds to charitable organizations across the United States (Courtesy of Kishane)