Only a year ago Brandon Hatch and Jessica Godfrey felt drawn to getting involved with BYUSA, and now they currently both hold positions of leadership and teamed together to run for the BYUSA presidency.
“We were trying to figure out how much time we’ve put into BYUSA, and I think I’m at over 600 hours, and Jess is not far behind,” Hatch said.
Hatch is a senior from Provo, is studying marketing, and is currently the vice president of communications in BYUSA. Godfrey is a junior from Henderson, Nev., is studying public relations, and is currently an executive director in administration in BYUSA. Their experiences have helped them join in a common cause to improve BYUSA.
“We’re really passionate about the cause,” Godfrey said. “We want to make sure that individuals are cared for and loved and that they have a place on campus.”
They said one of their favorite experiences from serving in BYUSA has been working with people and seeing them change.
“A lot of what you do in BYUSA can be pretty hard and can be pretty stressful, but when you take a step back and kind of account for what you’ve done or seen happen or seen other people develop into, that’s the coolest thing,” Hatch said.
Hatch and Godfrey have spent months preparing for their campaign and establishing initiatives they would focus on if elected.
“We’ve been doing a lot,” Hatch said. “It’s interesting because voting only happens for four days, but those four days will be the results of four months of work, really figuring out what students want to see.”
Through their preparation they have created five initiatives to accomplish if elected.
1. Open and Active Communication
“We want to see students better connected with BYUSA and we want them to understand what we’re doing and what we are trying to accomplish on their behalf,” Hatch said.
They said they will write a monthly presidency message illustrating their progress during the course of their time in office and regular updates to students through social networking.
2. Responsible Stewardship : “YOUniversity”
“We want to provide students with more things that they care about,” Godfrey said. “We will evaluate the programs and activities that have been done, and see if students actually benefit from them.”
This will include conducting focus groups and surveys, and holding more student choice events to meet student’s wants and needs.
3. Increase Student Involvement
They said they will do this by forging a relationship with the office of first-year experience and freshman mentoring, and informing students early about different on-campus involvement activities and opportunities.
4. Address Homeless Period
They said they will work with the landlords’ association and the office of off-campus housing to facilitate the drafting of four, eight and twelve-month contracts to help prevent a homeless period for students.
“We have seen a lot of students be frustrated with that situation and end up having to sleep on their friends couch or having to move twice,” Godfrey said.
5. Sweet Hour of Service
They said they will arrange for service projects to be consistently available between the hours of 11:00 and noon on Thursdays, where most students’ schedules are open.
“We want to build even more unity on campus through service,” Hatch said. “We would like to partner with some other organizations on campus, such as Y-serve, and put on service projects that somehow benefit the students,” Hatch said.
With these initiatives as their motivation, Hatch and Godfrey are committed to helping students get involved and feel included.
“I feel that BYU is already a very inclusive environment, but we can always reach out to more people,” Hatch said. “That’s something that draws us closer together as a candidate pair more than anything else, is that we both feel passionate about making people feel more involved and more cared about.”
