On April 4, just after the bell in Memorial Tower chimed at 3 p.m, a student government member stood in front of the podium at the base of the tower, and tapped on the microphone. The inauguration of the LSU Student Government president and vice president had begun.
The inauguration for Stewart Lockett and Rachel Campbell, 2018-19 SG president and vice president, was around half an hour, starting with the pledge of allegiance and ending with the alma mater. Speakers at the event included LSU President F. King Alexander, LSU Vice President Kurt Keppler and the former student president and vice president.
The thirty chairs in front of the podium were filled with family and friends of the Together We Can campaign, who listened intently to the speeches of the newly elected officials. While the event didn’t have a large attendance, with around 45 people, attendants seemed very invested, most having spent hours working on the recent student government campaign.
Director of outreach for the campaign Parker Carey said he knew Lockett would be a good fit for the role.
“I met Stewart about three weeks before my freshman year at LSU. And from that day on, it wasn’t like I knew that I needed to know this person, it was like, I wanted to be this person’s friend,” Carey said. “And I feel like he has that effect on everyone, that’s why he came off so personable when we were campaigning. Even though we were unopposed, he still made an effort to go out and reach and touch each every individual person who came to our tent.”
LSU Student Government Chief of Staff Heather Sullivan shared her good opinion of the new president and vice president, saying that their campaign was the first that she didn’t have to help out with, and that she enjoyed watching their progress. Sullivan thought the two could affect real change in their year-long term.
“He was at the Capitol last week, and I think it just goes to show how important the students mean to these two people, and I really believe that’s going to flow through their administration,” Sullivan said. “In a year from now, the university will be a different campus. In a good way.”
The two, whose ticket ran unopposed, have a lot of new ideas they want to implement, such as extending wi-fi further across campus, adding a closet to the University’s food pantry for students who need items such as winter and business clothes and increasing student government visibility. They’re also putting effort into increasing inclusiveness for all students. Lockett talked about a previous initiative they successfully finished.
“We changed first generation programming to nontraditional students to include a wider variety of students that need help acclimating to campus as well,” Lockett said. “Along with those first-gen, they fall under there as well.”
Lockett and Campbell, who have worked together on these kinds of initiatives since their freshman year, want to try and significantly benefit the experiences of university students.
“It was kind of wild to like, hear that people thought of us in those roles from the get-go. Other thing too, I know Stewart and I, we’ve both been in student government, we’ve been involved on campus for the past few years,” Campbell said. “It really seems like the kind of change our campus needs, the kind of change we can affect, not necessarily switching things over, but just working to improve student life here.”
LSU Student Government president-elect Stewart Lockett (center) and vice president-elect Rachel Campbell (left) listen to LSU Vice President of Student Affairs Kurt J. Keppler's speech during LSU's 2018-19 Student Government inauguration on Wednesday, April 4, 2018, near Memorial Tower.
