Franklin Sun

What relevant experience would you bring to the position you are seeking?

As a student at UMBC involved in multiple organizations, I feel like I have the experience and the knowledge of the changes I would like to make at our campus. I am currently an active member in the social fraternity Pi Kappa Phi and professional fraternity Phi Delta Epsilon. These two organizations have helped me so much in my development as a person, a leader, and a friend. For example, being warden for Pi Kappa Phi, a new member educator, helped me to build a team environment, conducive to working together as one unit and leading and educating our new members. I feel as though my experience in other organizations has built me for this role perfectly and I plan to use everything I learned along the way to build a good environment in the SGA Senate.

How do you intend on fulfilling your role while working alongside other members of SGA? What strategies do you use to address conflict?

I plan on fulfilling my role working alongside other members of SGA by utilizing my communication skills to clearly formulate my plans and use my knowledge and experience to help other members formulate and consolidate their ideas as well. I want to make sure that all the members feel heard and comfortable sharing how they feel about each others’ ideas and getting feedback on their respective ideas. I plan to address conflict by making sure that disagreements never turn into an ego-battle or a person vs. person fight. Disagreeing in itself is not bad, as it can lead to new knowledge being learned on both sides, and will only turn into conflict if people get emotions involved. I think the best way to stop a disagreement from turning into a conflict is to reinforce the idea that we are all on the same time fighting for the betterment of our campus, and as long as that idea is held solid, I believe that conflicts can resolve in a friendly manner.

What is your vision for UMBC and the UMBC student body?

The vision at the forefront of my mind for UMBC and the UMBC student body is a system where the student body is heard and represented through the SGA. The government association at this school should be catering to the students and what they need/want, and we should merely be their voice. An initiative I had in mind was to start a program featuring UMBC’s athletic program, and take some of the large amounts of money they get from each student to fund a training program for UMBC students. Physical fitness comes in many different forms: sports, lifting, cardio, and we can empower the students by giving them the knowledge to create good, lifelong habits that will never stop benefiting them by training them physically. I think this program will help a lot of students who want to start their physical fitness journey, but don’t know where to start.

How do you plan to facilitate communications with your constituents?

Being involved in other organizations taught me how to gain visibility to the student body and how to communicate with them. As rush leader of Pi Kappa Phi, I had to plan events that reached as many students as possible to get a good turnout, and the best way to do that I found was through an online presence, as well as planning events that gained the interest of possible attendees so they would actually want to attend. I want to make sure that the initiative that I create will interest the student body, or at least the majority of them, so that they will want to speak up and express their thoughts and feelings on the situation. I want to make sure the changes that I implement at this school actually benefit the majority of the students so that they will feel more comfortable at this school so it becomes a home.