Student Senate’s freshman election came to a close on Sept.21, electing Kara Wofford as TJC’s new freshman president. In high school, Wofford was a member of the 4H student leadership organization, holding the positions of president and vice president during her high school years and receiving a Texas 4-H Opportunity Scholarship in May 2022. The DrumBeat sat down with Wofford for an interview to discuss her motivations and plans for the future.
Q: What got you interested in the Student Senate in the first place?
A: I wanted to make my own impact on the campus and Lauren Tyler and Aaron [Hernandez] had mentioned how good I would have been as the freshman president. And so I was like, ‘Oh, that sounds really interesting.’ And I decided to run for it because I wanted to be an advocate for the campus and have my own voice.
Q: What are your plans now that you’re in office?
A: I wanted to be an advocate for the campus, and so I wanted to be plugged in to where, if all my friends who were freshmen had ideas for campus improvement, they could come to me about that and I can advocate it to the Senate. And so just whatever role that they need me to fill, I plan to fill for them.
Q: What does the position mean to you?
A: It means a lot. I was kind of nervous running for it because I came to TJC and I was like, I’m just gonna get my classes. I’m not gonna be involved. And then I realized how homey the community actually is on the Tyler campus. It means that I get to represent the freshmen body and be an advocate for them, and I’m very honored that I was chosen to be the freshman president.
Q: Do you plan on running for sophomore president next year?
A: Depending on how this year goes, I really am thinking about it because so far I love the Senate. I love the environment. I love being able to plug in and be involved, like kind of to a higher standard. And so depending on how my classes go, I probably will be looking to run for sophomore executive president.
Q: How well do you think your experience with the high school student council will transfer to the college’s Student Senate?
A: Well, along with student council, I did a lot of 4H, as well. And so I was the 4H president and vice president. I’ve known parliamentary procedure pretty much my whole life, and so that ties in to being able to advocate meetings. And so I have a lot of experience on being a representative of a council and organization. That past experience really helped me for my position to be able to campaign and to be elected as freshman senate president.
Q: What are some issues around campus you care strongly about?
A: I believe that lighting is very important. Having more study rooms because you go to the library and it’s really loud and I feel like you don’t have a private study area really anywhere. For proctored exams with the new program they have, there’s so many regulations and I want to be an advocate to help there be rooms where you can go specifically to take the proctored exams where they have to have the camera in the video, because we don’t have any facilities that will be able to help you with that. Those are some of the things that I want to help advocate for.
Q: Is there anything you would like to say to the student body?
A: I would just like to say thank y’all for electing me to be the freshman student president, and I hope that I will do y’all proud and go Apaches!
