“I was actually really not interested in the SGA prior to my introduction [to the VPSI role],” said Nina Ioanis, current Vice President of Student Interests (VPSI) of the Student Government Association (SGA). Ioanis has served in a plethora of leadership positions in multiple cultural organizations, such as the Culture Chair of Filipino Association of Stevens Tech (FAST) and Public Relations Chair of the Ethnic Student Council (ESC). Now, she has taken on a larger-scale leadership position as the Vice President of Student Interests — the individual who oversees every Recognized Student Organization (RSO) on campus and, as Ioanis calls it, “the knower of things.”
Originally, Ioanis was not interested in pursuing the position of VPSI. “So the ESC president at the time had asked me a little earlier in the year like, Oh, Dakota had been looking for a successor, and I think you’d be a good fit for the position so you should talk to him. Are you interested? Blah blah blah, that type of thing,” said Ioanis. “At that point I wasn’t really interested at all.” At the time, Ioanis aspired to be the next ESC President — but after the restructuring of the ESC within the SGA, Ioanis became interested in “branching out” and in the VPSI role. “I’m like super scared of being caught in a bubble,” said Ioanis. “I know Stevens is really notorious for bubbling groups […] so I thought joining the SGA would be a good way for me to branch out — and it has been. I’ve met a lot of interesting people.”
On the ESC e-board, Ioanis pushed for more “collaboration” between different organizations. “I wanted to bring in more out-of-subcommittee orgs into our events too, but it was kind of hard to coordinate schedules,” said Ioanis regarding her efforts on the ESC e-board. Now, as VPSI, she wants to promote collaboration between different organizations. “A big goal I had for the [Leadership] Connects was to promote more of a networking opportunity between presidents because I think a big thing with not being able to do things on campus is not knowing who to reach out to to start the gears going and the coordination happening,” said Ioanis, “so I’m not sure if it was accomplished, but a big goal of mine was to make sure that presidents knew each other and orgs knew about what other orgs were doing.”
Ioanis encourages not only organizations but also other students to branch out of their normal circles. She especially tries to push freshmen, as they have not fallen into their Stevens habits yet, but she acknowledges that this can be difficult. “It’s hard to get people to come out to events when they don’t already know people that are going,” said Ioanis. “It’s hard to reach out to people who may want to be involved or have interest in a certain club or don’t necessarily know the people in that club.” Even if someone is heavily involved in a club, she still encourages them to branch out even more: “It’s great that they get so involved in one club and stay there their whole college career, but I know a lot of people later wish they could have done more areas, club-wise.”
While Nina Ioanis is the current VPSI, overseer of over 100 organizations on campus, she recognizes that students still may be involved in other ways. “Student involvement is doing something other than being a student,” she said. Student involvement may also include having an on-campus job, working off-campus, or involvement in Greek life. “You’re here to immerse yourself in a network that is provided to you by the Stevens campus or the Stevens student body, and meeting people outside of the classroom is very important, especially like when you’re trying to learn those soft skills that you need for working,” said Ioanis.
One of her goals for the future — whether during her term as VPSI or after — is to promote large-scale subcommittee-wide events, like how the cultural organizations coordinate for Unity. “I still want to pursue that, but I don’t think I can do that while I’m VPSI because there’s a lot of management stuff that I have to be doing at the same time,” she said. The responsibilities of the VPSI include handling the New Organization Process, chairing the Committee on Student Interests, and serving on the audit committee, as well as other responsibilities. Yet, she sees these large-scale events as more of a possibility at Stevens in the future due to the increasing size of the student body and the resulting larger student activity fund.
For anyone interested in becoming VPSI and taking the reins, Ioanis has a long list of suggestions — all revolving around knowing the ins and outs of running an organization. “Definitely learn how a club works […] in whatever club you’re closest to, see how their e-board functions, know how they do certain things, know what they do when they have to work with the Office of Student Life,” said Ioanis. “Befriend older people in clubs, so you have people to reach out to when you have specific questions about how clubs work and what’s going on in certain clubs in terms of the people-to-people interactions and how things work — how things work in practice and not just the technicalities of what’s written in the Constitution. It’s good to be around in the Office of Student Life a lot, and it’s good to be around a lot of different students who are involved in a lot of different things just so you know what’s happening.”
But the most important thing is reaching out to Nina about the position. “I love talking to people about my position,” she said. Ioanis is still waiting for someone to tell her they are interested in taking the reins and become the next “knower of things.”
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