Maurice Gipson and Lori King, FOREVER LSU’s candidates for president and vice president, mesh together like “gel” — at least that is how they explain their relationship.
Gipson, an education junior, and King, an English junior, met each other as incoming freshmen.
They both said they are sticklers for detail and complement each other well.
They were sitting in a Senate meeting when Gipson thought that King would be the perfect running-mate. King also was considering Gipson.
King said they have definitely “gelled” more in the past two weeks.
Gipson said he has a “do not quit” attitude, but his sense of humor is dry.
He said he likes to get down to business, a quality he attributes to his childhood.
Gipson said the divorce of his parents shook his world, because he went from living in a stable family in England to living in a single-parent home in the United States.
The divorce forced Gipson to be the man of his family and a stronger person.
“Somewhere around the eighth grade, I just took a stand and said I was going to stand up for something and do something great and make my mom proud,” he said. “I was going to put this family’s weight on my shoulders.”
Like Gipson, King’s life has not always been so fun and relaxed. King, who described herself as being outgoing and is a third-degree black-belt, was diagnosed with leukemia in her senior year of high school.
King said when she found out about her leukemia she thought everything in her life was taken away from her.
She said her illness has inhibited her but also encouraged.
She also has an autoimmune disease that has stopped her from playing sports.
King said she now understands that everyone has their own fight, but people have to be willing to take up for others.
“I am going to take up someone else’s fight because they can only go so far,” she said. “As vice-president I can go a little farther.”
The Reveille asked each pair of Student Government candidates these questions. The Reveille’s questions are in bold, and Gipson and King’s answers are in plain type.
How would you get more students involved in Student Government?
We let them know this is their Student Government and their input counts, and let them know they can help in the decision-making process at every step of the way. A lot of people go online and people have actually tried to get in touch with SG officials by e-mail, but they don’t know where to post it. They just post random notes on the SG Web site. We would like to see a place where students can do that. We would also like to push student involvement, not only with the elected positions and with the executive board. But, also by SG volunteers getting out because the more that we ask them to get involved the more they care about what’s going on.
What do you think is the most important issue students face?
We think from a student aspect — the value of your degree. Nowadays very few people go straight into the workforce right after they graduate from college. They do go to graduate schools and not many students continue the same graduate school that they got there undergraduate degree from. So, we think a lot of it has to do with the value of your degree when you go and apply to other graduate schools or other positions for people to see. We think a lot of it [degree values] depends on which department, which probably shouldn’t be that way. We think that is kind of unleveled in that area, and this is one thing we know the administration is trying to work towards so that we know that all degrees are heavily weighed.
How do your plans involving the Master Plan and Flagship Agenda compare to the campus administration?
We think a lot of these things we want to do with Student Government have a direct correlation to the Master Plan and the Flagship Agenda. In the Flagship agenda they talk about stressing academics and with the 24-hour computer labs that will help tremendously with academics. Another thing with the Flagship Agenda is to increase diversity on this campus — that goes exactly with our support of minority recruitment. The University is trying. We want them to know that Student Government is behind them 100 percent in their endeavors and whenever they need us, we are there. We are just trying to re-inforce the programs that are in place.
What changes, if any, would you make to Student Government?
Personally student-friendly. A lot of what we have always talked about is that Student Government is an entity of itself and it should not be that way. It should be incorporated as an integral part of the campus. What we would like to see for the Student Government office, when the Union gets renovated, is to be in a more student body friendly place — like on the first floor of the Union. Another thing we want students to know is that we are not dignitaries. We are students. We have classes like you, we have problems. We are elected officials however we are on your level. We want communication. We do not care if you’re mad at us. Come yell at our face. That is our biggest thing — communication with students.
Is there anything specifically about Allen Richey and Jason Wesley’s administration that you would like to continue or anything you would have done differently?
I think the last time we talked about Chats with the Chancellor and how we would keep that, but expand upon it. We would like Chats with the Chancellor in a more comfortable setting as opposed to the Atchafalaya Room. I think that is one of the things we will expand a upon. We will still keep the recycling program, the bus trip, pajama program and all the current programs they have in place. We did talk about incorporating the Senate and Executive staff and make them more cohesive. The Senate and executive staff do not always agree and mesh well. As senators moving over into the executive staff, we want to be able to have both sides “gelled” because we want to do as much as possible in the limited time we have in office. If we can get to a point where the Senate and the executive staff all work together for the betterment of the students than that would make the administration so much more comfortable and people would see so much more get done.
What would you do to increase visibility of SG activity?
The biggest thing is publicize, publicize, publicize. You have to let people know what’s going on. We did talk about possibly going to each individual college and let them know ‘hey this is what we are doing, this is what is going on, if you have any questions or concerns lets us know.’ If you keep pushing it in people’s face and they see it, then they have no choice but to come and support it. Everyone relies a lot on The Reveille because it is the student newspaper and people read it to find out what’s going on, to find out what happened, who’s who and all that stuff. We would like to see our public relations with Student Media become stronger and say ‘here’s what going on can you send someone out to do this.’
What are your thoughts about student parking?
We think it is terrible. Everybody knows from LSU campus, parking is a nightmare ’cause we have so many people and so many students. It’s just crazy. We think personally there is no feasible way to make everyone happy. Ideally, everyone wants to park right where they live or right were they want to go. You just can’t do do that since we have so many people on campus. We definitely think we are just going to have utilize the different things we have in place — such as Campus Transit and the bus system. You should be able to park your car and leave it there and either walk or use the transit or the bus system.