Before spring break, Hailey Chen secured her spot as Vice President of Liberty and Armstrong Affairs for the Student Government Association.

Chen had previously been a senator for the College of Sciences and Mathematics and deputy speaker of the Senate.

I managed to set up an interview with her Thursday afternoon to discuss what she strives to achieve during her term in our student government under a new position. 

“When I was doing my election campaigning, I campaigned on mental health awareness, student safety, better academics, and more student activities, and also promoting sustainability,” Chen said.

She covered how she would implement changes regarding those areas.

“So, for mental health, I was considering, maybe possibly, if the school would allow me, because some of these decisions are obviously above me, to hire a part-time psychiatrist at our campus, because I know that Statesboro, they have a psychiatrist in their counseling center,” Chen said.

She said that our counseling center on campus only has counselors, so they can talk to students but can’t prescribe them any drugs if they need help, while a part-time psychiatrist could.

Chen shed light on why she applied for her position.

“This is actually my first full year in the Student Government Association but ever since, when we started school in August, I have gotten more involved with the activities that we host and I really fell in love with what I did and I do want to continue advocating for our students on this campus because I believe that we are underrepresented, especially compared to Georgia Southern, as in the Statesboro campus,” she said.

She also showed her support for the sustainability initiative.

“We did pass the sustainability initiative during our elections and so that, of course, is going to go to the University System of Georgia, and I want to do anything in my power to convince them that we should apply the sustainability fee on campus. Just because the students want it does not necessarily mean the University System of Georgia will think that’s best for us, so I do want to convince them that it will be best for us,” Chen said.

She also mentioned that she would like to spread more awareness of the Student Government Association.

“I do hope to interact with the students more. I feel like a lot of the students here do not know about the Student Government Association and because of that, they are not able to express their concerns about their academics or their extracurriculars, and you know, their life as a student on this campus, and because of that they are not getting the best experience that they can possibly have here. I do want to raise more awareness of us as an organization and our ability to advocate for students, and I think a good way to do that is to host more events that we as SGA are involved with,” Chen said.

She also shared how she plans to support the Liberty campus.

“This year the current vice president, and my predecessor, she tried to arrange a meeting for the entire executive board, the vice president, the president, all the other vice presidents, to go and tour the liberty campus and she was unable to do that because of scheduling conflicts so I want to pick up where she left off and see if we can still continue to arrange a new tour with the new staff that we have,” Chen said.

She acknowledged the importance of recognizing the military community on the Liberty campus.

“I do know that it is a much smaller campus, and it is primarily more military-focused because of the students there, but that doesn’t mean they should be neglected in any sort of way,” Chen said.

Chen said she moved around a lot as a child, but has lived most of her life in Richmond Hill.

She is currently a third-year biology major and plans on graduating here at Georgia Southern University. Her intent for post-graduation is to attend law school.