K-State Salina student body elects Lippert and Watson to serve as SGA leadership

The newly elected Student Governing Association president and vice president at Kansas State University Salina are ready to implement their ideas for the 2024-2025 school year.

Students at K-State Salina elected Keenan Lippert, junior in uncrewed aircraft systems flight and operations, Sabetha, as president and Stephen Watson, sophomore dual majoring in aviation maintenance management and professional pilot, Tomball, Texas, as vice president in the annual Student Governing Association, or SGA, campus elections. Lippert and Watson plan to focus their leadership efforts on maximizing student involvement on campus.

"We want to emphasize involvement and being a voice for students," Lippert said. "K-State Salina has a good culture of student involvement when it comes to clubs and service projects that benefit our community. We want to build upon that foundation and continue to make campus a productive environment for students to learn and develop leadership skills. We hope that this involvement will progress into ideas that bring new activities to the campus and connect students with one another."

Both students have been involved with K-State Salina's SGA this past year. Lippert held the role of secretary, and Watson was a senator and community service coordinator. This experience has allowed the duo to develop and learn more about their passions for serving the campus, its students and the broader community.

"I've always been huge on community service," Watson said. "Being the community service coordinator allowed me to exercise my passion and share that with other students. I think when students become a part of SGA, it allows them to have a large say in what happens around campus, which is a huge step in their professional careers because they can see how an organization runs and the difficult decisions that allow it to progress."

SGA at K-State Salina meets weekly to discuss and address the issues and concerns of campus. The meetings are open to all students, faculty and staff. The organization is responsible for filling many student leadership roles, including cabinet chairs that focus on different campus initiatives like programming events for students, diversity affairs and community service. SGA also nominates students to be senators to help have input and vote on matters of importance. This representation is diverse and includes many members studying different academic focuses.

"I think SGA is important because it gives our students a voice. It gives a reason for students to give input on important decisions involving this campus," Lippert said. "Stephen and I are students ourselves and are excited to be able to support the campus to the best of our ability."