Hicks' presidency full of internal reflection

Tequia Hicks is excited, and she has reason to be - she's saying goodbye to the highest position in the Undergraduate Student Government and hello to an internship in Sen. Barrack Obama's office.

Hicks first heard the good news during a cell phone call Thursday morning. "I was in the middle of a meeting, and I was ready to burst," Hicks said. "But I couldn't call anyone and tell them."

Receiving an internship in Washington would cause stress for a lot of people, but Hicks, who is coming off a year as the top executive in an organization criticized in the media on a weekly basis, said she is more excited than anything.

Earlier in the year, USG was called ineffective and unproductive. Hicks' own vice president even attempted to replace the organization with a brand-new government, and Hicks remained admittedly detached. "I kind of laid back in the cut," Hicks said. "I wanted people to have this discussion, to have this argument of what student government is and what it could be."

Ed Ford, whom Hicks will succeed as student trustee in the fall, said a year for USG could go three ways: There are years that are internally oriented, externally oriented and the very rare year that mixes both. Under Hicks, they focused on internal business, Ford said.

"This was a year for a real mirroring of our student involvement and student leadership," Hicks said. "I think for years the people involved in USG have known the problems but don't want to vocalize it."

She let the attacks on USG continue so it would move further into the media spotlight and foster an environment of discussion, Hicks said. "That hasn't happened before," Hicks said. "There hasn't been a campus-wide discussion of student government. I allowed that to go on so people would have that opportunity."

Although Hicks will spend her warm weather months in the nation's capital, she spent last summer in Carbondale revising USG's constitution, which didn't get approved by the senate until February.

Approving the new constitution was not the only thing senators had problems doing. From August to January, Hicks wrote more legislation than the entire legislative branch. Next year things will be different, Hicks said.

"Hopefully next year will be a roll-up-your-sleeves year," Hicks said. While getting the senate on track for next year, Ford said Hicks did a great job of fulfilling the duties of her office.

"The main role and function of the president is to go out and represent the student voice out to the campus," Ford said. "When things came up, I think she was very willing to go out and say this is the student perspective."

Aside from representing the student body, the president is also responsible for appointing student representatives to more than 60 campus committees including safety, fine arts and the chancellor's advisory board, which influences decisions about the fate of those who violate the student conduct code. During her presidency, she made it a point to put non-senators on these boards so a broader sampling of the student body would be represented, a tactic Ford said was beneficiary to student government.

"The most important thing Tequia did all year was she bought into this notion that if you are an enrolled student, then you should be involved in your student government," Ford said.

Opening USG to more than just students with high grade point averages wasn't the only thing she accomplished. Hicks said under her leadership, the government was at the forefront of a lot of campus developments, including sparking a discussion about the high cost of textbooks.

"That was not an issue prior to this year," Hicks said. "Now the faculty senate picked it up, and it's gone all the way to the Illinois Board of Higher Education."

When she returns from Washington this fall, Hicks will be able to put the name Obama on her resume, but more important to SIUC is the way she has continued the USG tradition of post-meeting social gatherings, Ford said. Mary-Kate Bredel, USG executive assistant, has occupied the office next to the president for two years, and she said continuing the get-togethers does a lot for the senators.

"I think it's a good way for the senate to come together," Bredel said. "Any disputes on the floor get mended. It's a good way for them to remember they're just people too."

As long as she remembers Sen. Obama is a person just like her, Hicks said she does not think she will be nervous around her new boss. "It's not really a fear of meeting people," Hicks said. "It's a fear of working under him."