At the heart of Resident Hall Association president Kasey Kram’s student body president campaign is the idea that the Aggie experience extends beyond the typical four years as an undergraduate student at A&M.
Kram said a large part of his campaign focuses on the big picture. Kram said he wants to maintain the University’s roots while considering what campus will look like in five years.
“From freshman to former, it starts with a connection, and at Texas A&M University, this connection has already begun and needs to continue as we continue to grow,” Kram said.
Kram said the constant demand to address student concerns as RHA president has helped him gauge what A&M students want and need. Kram said he built his platform off this and other conversations with students.
Kram said his understanding is that the biggest issues facing campus are the University’s expansion of West campus and the building of 4,200 new bed spaces, ensuring core values and traditions are transferred over to that environment, bus times, mandatory meal plans, dining locations and quality and the disconnect of communication with SGA.
Kram said a major component to addressing these concerns is seeking out student opinion.
“No one knows what students want more than students,” Kram said. “So being able to poll the student opinion is very important.”
In addition to internal University concerns, Kram said he hopes to establish greater ties within the SEC by starting a community service project among SEC schools in the fall with other SEC student body presidents.
“We definitely show our dominance on the field in the Southeastern Conference,” Kram said, “But we definitely want to show that core value of selfless service.”
Kram said he also wants to implement a mentoring program with the Association of Former Students. While no specifics have been ironed out, Kram said this could be a matter of five-minute interviews or a weekly dinner between a student and a former student.
Kram has come up with ideas like “The Good Bull Book,” a bucket list that would be passed out at new student conferences so that students could stamp off Aggie traditions or campus organizational events they participate in throughout their time on campus.
“Every student has their different tale of what they did in Aggieland,” Kram said. “But there are some things that we all kind of end up doing, whether it’s going to Silver Taps, going to Muster, doing Big Event, getting a ride home from Carpool or just going to the Dixie Chicken and carving your name in the table.”
Kram said part of the goal of the book is to allow students to maintain Aggie customs in the age of campus expansion and to even add to their bucket lists if possible. Kram said an inclusive and open committee would decide what goes in the initial book and that the book would change each year.
Kram said if elected, he wants to foster a sense of transparency between senate and the SBP, as this is the key to conveying to the student body what its student government is doing for them.
“I think communication is always key and something that sometimes goes by the wayside,” Kram said. “And I think that’s what sparks a lot of problems, because you don’t know what’s going on so therefore you get angry.”