Name: Ezekiel “Zeke” Kimball
Title: Student Senate Chair
Age: 20
Year: Senior: (Third Year)
Major: Classical Literature
Ezekiel (Zeke) Kimball, the chair of the Student Senate met with me on a muggy afternoon at 11 Baxter Blvd. While his handshake was firm, his nervous smile indicated a shy, humble person, preferring the behind-the-scenes view over the spotlight this interview would bring. It was readily apparent he had come to his position out of a sense of responsibility as opposed to the glory some would find in having it on their resume.
Why did you decide to be a senator?
I think I’m like a lot of people at USM in that my involvement started accidentally and then once I was involved in a student group, it was a natural progression to become a student senator.
This year, I ran for chair because there were a couple of things I thought really needed to happen that we had been talking about for a while and I thought maybe I could get them done.
What do you feel, in your three years, is the most important contribution you’ve made to the university?
I think the thing that I hope will be around ten years from now is the Leadership Development Board, and with it, the Learn to Lead Conference. The Leadership Development Board was created last year by the Student Senate as a group that brought together a number of different stakeholders on campus in leadership. It acts as a clearing house for leadership information and sponsors leadership seminars. Each spring [the Board] runs a leadership conference. Instead of sending people out to get leadership experience, we would bring leadership experience in. This opens up recruitment opportunities for the University as high school students and students from other schools would be invited to the conference. That would be my achievement. I think. I hope.
What is your favorite USM memory?
Last year, I was awarded the Outstanding Student Leader Award. The reason that it’s the best memory for me, at least, is that it came at a time when I had been upset for not earning a scholarship I really wanted. I was feeling like I hadn’t been recognized. Chris O’Connor, the Senate Advisor, knew all along I had won this award and didn’t tell me. When I opened the letter, Chris was standing there and said, “Congratulations!” And it just felt good to be recognized and I think that was probably my best memory of USM. I guess my best memory is just someone saying “thanks.”
If you could choose anyone in history to sit down and have a cup of coffee with, or have some dinner with, who would it be?
I’m going to have to go with Thomas Jefferson. I think that he was one of the last great humanists. He was a renaissance human being. There was very little that he couldn’t do. He kind of unifies all my interests. He could have done anything.
Who would you most like to be like?
Ten or fifteen years down the line, I would like to be a happy person. Where I am in my life isn’t necessarily where I thought I’d be, but is a good place and a rewarding place.
What advice to you wish someone had given you as a freshman?
The major piece of advice that freshman need to hear is that they have a voice. It took me a really long time to figure out that if something was important to me, I had the right to say it.
What advice do you wish you’d listened to as a freshman?
Find the one thing that interests you on campus and then do it.
What advice do you wish you could forget?
I’m not so pleased that I took the advice to study hard, as seriously as I did. I think I missed the college experience that others seem to really have enjoyed. I wish I had had more fun the first couple years of college; not the drinking and partying aspect. Just being out there in a social environment.
Are you a recluse?
No, just bookish.
While many people find it difficult to finish up their USM education in the traditional four years (there are those of us who are on the decade-plus plan), Zeke is embarking on his senior year just three years into college. He has some large goals ahead of him and a strong sense of duty to help achieve them.
Diane Russell can be contacted at [email protected]