Chippy Kennedy wants to get people talking. As the new Undergraduate Student Government president, he plans to make that happen.
Traditionally, he noted, students have a reputation of being apathetic toward political issues on campus and what’s going on around them. But he is confident this perception is not the reality.
“I think our students are driven and they follow their passions,” said Kennedy, a senior serving his third year on USG.
He hopes to combat the idea of indifference by introducing conversation-driven Undergraduate Student Government general assembly meetings, each one with a theme and an affiliated speaker from the university administration that will help spark a dialogue. There, he hopes students will see that they can make changes to better the institution and realize the purpose and power of USG.
“Here are the people who can make legislative change. Here are the people that the administrators are listening to,” he said. “Now is the opportunity to capitalize and make a change.”
Kennedy hopes that, through these meetings, students will step up to make changes to areas that concern them most—just like he did three years ago.
Kennedy originally joined USG as a sophomore to better represent athletes’ voices on campus and advocate for issues pertinent to them.
“I didn’t think there was enough representation in terms of someone advocating for athletes on campus,” Kennedy, who is co-captain of the cross country team, said. “I’d still like to think I represent an athlete.”
It wasn’t long before he began rising throughout the ranks in USG, taking on positions on the financial committee. During his second semester with USG he decided to fill a new role when the organization looked to add another treasurer to help with the massive undertaking of logging all of the financial information for student organizations.
“There’s not a lot of glamorous words to describe it, but it’s extremely important,” Kennedy explained.
In his second year in USG, he became vice president of finance, which gave him the opportunity to get to know many of the student organizations on a more personal level. Kennedy also quickly learned the biggest frustrations of the system, which often included reimbursements.
To help combat the oftentimes-long wait to pay back students for the purchases for their organizations, USG created the Sparta Center in the Tinkham Veale University Center. Rather than students needing to wait for reimbursement for commonly used items for events, the center stores products such as tablecloths, paper plates, plastic silverware, poster materials and decorations in bulk—and student organizations have free access to the resources.
As the ideas Kennedy played a key role in implementing in his first two years came to fruition, he realized there was even more work to do in order to create a better environment for students, including starting conversation-based meetings and better advocating for students.
“I felt that a lot of the changes I wanted to make to the greater leadership structure for undergraduates at this university were half done,” he said. “The role of president seemed like a very good place to take on a bigger role of making that happen and making change happen.”
Want to start a conversation with Kennedy? Stop by his office hours in the Tinkham Veale University Center. But first, be sure to read his answers to our five questions.
1. What’s the one place in Cleveland that’s your must-visit for out-of-towners?
I would definitely say downtown. Night Market is this awesome street fair that they put on once a month. I think it’s one of the coolest things ever. Although I would take an out-of-towner downtown, I also think it’s really important for CWRU students to go there. There’s so much to do any given weekend.
2. What’s the best advice you’ve received from a teacher?
One teacher in high school told me, “one thing at a time.” Basically, when you’re overwhelmed or have too much on your plate, the best thing you can possibly do for yourself is stop making lists, stop worrying about everything and just do one thing—taking life one step at a time. I think now, more than ever, I use that.
3. What’s the one thing people would be surprised to know about you?
I like to think I don’t keep too many secrets, but I consider myself terrible at time management. A lot of people who don’t know me as well assume I’ve mastered it by now, but you can talk to anyone who works with me directly or my friends—I’m just not good at being on time to things and, in general, trying to fit everything into a single day.
4. What famous person—past or present—would you most like to have dinner with and where would you go?
I would definitely take Abraham Lincoln to Qdoba. I respect Abraham Lincoln. I think he’s someone who did what he knew would be right, even when people disagreed with him. Thinking of myself as a leader, I think it’s extremely important to stay strong in what your values are and making decisions based on your truth. At the same time, [it’s important to make] sure you’re surrounding yourself with people who sometimes disagree with you or are willing to speak out against you. Why Qdoba? It’s better than Chipotle. And he’d be amazed by the whole process, right? It’s a pretty new age thing.
5. What’s your favorite thing about Case Western Reserve?
It’s the people. I came here on a hunch that I liked computer science. I don’t know of anyone who’d still be here if they didn’t find a group of people they enjoy being with. I’ve been so lucky to find multiple groups of people that I could grow with professionally, student-government-wise and as a runner.