With the academic year coming to an end, we took this opportunity to interview Samantha Zwerling about her experience serving for the past two years as the president of the University of Maryland Student Government Association. How did you get involved in the UMD Student Government? When I came to college, I was looking for an environmental student group to join, so I got involved with MaryPIRG. MaryPIRG’s funding was very dependent on their relationship with the SGA, so I started attending every SGA meeting. I became the Chapter Chair of MaryPIRG at the end of my sophomore year, and continued to work with the SGA. At the end of that year, I thought that I could make a big impact on the SGA and decided to run for president. What were a few of your biggest accomplishments during your time as SGA President?
  • We organized a campaign to lobby the school administration for more funding for mental health services. It resulted in an extra $5 million over 10 years.
  • We successfully lobbied the College Park City Council to reduce the age to run for City Council or Mayor to 18 (it was previously 21 for council and 26 for mayor).
  • We had a bill introduced in the Maryland General Assembly to protect interns from sexual harassment and other types of discrimination.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when trying to accomplish your goals? Recruitment is always hard. No matter how good you are, it’s so important that you surround yourself with good, motivated people. On that note, it was hard to delegate. A couple of times, I didn’t realize how much I needed to delegate work until it was too late. What have you learned from your experience as president? I’ve learned a lot about how important relationships are. I was able to form relationships with state delegates over issues like marriage equality, and those relationships proved to be important when the university was lobbying for its budget. I built up trust with administrators and only made a big deal out of very, very important issues. It’s important to show that you’re willing to work with them, and that you understand what everyone’s goals are. In your experience, what are the most important roles and responsibilities of an effective student government? What obstacles make it difficult for a student government to live up to those? It’s very important to actually get feedback and communicate with the students that you represent. It can be easy to always stay in the SGA office and only talk to other student government members, but it’s important that students know what you’re working on, and what you’ve accomplished. That gives you more legitimacy. Doing this is really hard because it requires a concentrated effort and a lot of time. For newly elected student government presidents who are just beginning their term, what advice would you give them?
  • Find a close group of friends (preferably outside of SGA) that you can hang out with.
  • Write handwritten notes to people you meet with. This might sound old fashioned, but I was very diligent about writing notes and got a ton of positive feedback. People will remember that you’re the person who sent them a note in the mail.
  • Make sure that the organization bonds outside of work. Set up a couple of dinners or kickball games — things where people can get to know each other.