My Fellow Students:
Well, it’s been a hell of a year hasn’t it? With all of the events and happenings swirling around campus this year, it seems to have ended more quickly than I could have imagined. In a year marked by a new incoming president, budget woes and worries, new buildings, new construction and tough times for those within the student involvement community, I am looking towards graduation while trying to summarize not only the last year but my last four years at USM.
As I look back on my experience here at USM as a whole, it has been the best four years of my life. There is no period in time where I can say that I was happier, that I was more productive, more involved and engaged. I look at my impending graduation and departure from USM like a train headed towards a wall at 150 mph, and there is no time to hit the brakes. There so much more I would like to do here, so many people and things I will be leaving behind, and I will miss it dearly.
I had the honor and privilege to serve as your student body president for the last year, and I cannot thank you enough for giving me that opportunity. My experience in student government is one in which I particularly feel that I have to let go just as soon as I was really getting good at it. I keep wishing that I had gotten involved much sooner, and that I had been able to be a student senator before becoming student body president, or that I had more time with the Model United Nations Organization.
In any event, I hope that I was able to represent you well in every meeting or event I attended this year, and that the path is set for my successor Ben Taylor to keep representing USM students in the best possible manner. I truly believe he will, and I hope you can support him throughout next year. It is a tough and often thankless job, with longer hours than you may realize, but someone needs to do it, and I’m glad that someone got to be me this year.
While my time at USM has come to an end, that’s not the case for many of you who will read this. I cannot encourage you enough, if you are not already, to get involved at USM, and to try and make a difference in the university community. All year we have been bombarded with disheartening news, about a favorite teacher’s contract not being renewed, or a possible jump in our tuition rates. What we haven’t heard about is students taking proactive measures to try and be a part of solving these issues.
One of the greatest events of the entire school year for me was “Change ’08” in February. Students from every facet of the university including Greeks, athletes, residents, commuters and senators came together to discuss and create plans to solve persistent problems at USM. For the first time in my four years at USM, I saw students who usually did not get involved in creating positive change at USM making their opinions and ideas known in order to do some good. I hope that before you leave, you can do the same at next year’s “Change 09”, by running for student government, joining a student organization, or in any of many other ways.
USM, do not let the time slip by like it did for me. One thing that jumps at me when I think back on four years at USM is that this is an amazing school, despite all of its challenges and shortcomings. We are all collectively responsible for the successes and failures of our school. The way I see it, USM is the commonwealth of its students, staff and faculty. It’s easy to point out and criticize what is wrong or what hasn’t worked at USM, but what we need to start doing more as students is to try to fix what doesn’t work, and to get involved in order to positively impact the entire student experience, and yourselves as well.
Thank you again for allowing me to be your Student Body President, I have enjoyed every minute of it. I wish you all the best in the future.
Sincerely,
AJ Chalifour
Former Student Body President