Morgan McKeen is a third-year communications and media studies student minoring in business and French. She is running to be Carleton University Student’s Association (CUSA)’s next vice-president (community engagement) as part of the Students First slate.
Previous experience
McKeen said her participation in volunteering opportunities and extracurricular activities on campus make her a good candidate for the newly-formed community engagement position.
She said she hopes to get students involved with the Carleton community just as much as she has been.
“I love nothing more than connecting people,” she said. “I’m really passionate about professional development, but also personal development.”
Reasons for running
McKeen said she decided to run in this year’s election because she thinks the community engagement position is a perfect fit for her.
“Vice-president community engagement is also a brand new position this year, so I thought that it was almost a call to me because I consider myself a community builder,” she said.
“I’ve really wanted to give other students the same opportunities to grow personally, professionally, and hopefully have jobs by the time we graduate,” McKeen said.
Slate or independent?
For this election, McKeen has decided to run under the Students First slate.
“[I] wouldn’t say anything really inclined me to run on slate or not,” she said. “It just so happened that I’ve had the opportunity to work with all of the individuals that I decided to run with.”
“Because all of us have such a diverse experience here, we can really work together well,” she said. “We’re a very diverse group ourselves … culturally diverse, like, religiously diverse and everything like that, so it’s really nice that we can come together.”
Campaign goals
McKeen’s main platform points include creating networking opportunities for students.
“I really want to work on creating relationships, or at least building a relationship, with our alumni network,” McKeen said. “By connecting with our alumni, I’m connecting students to people that have gone through similar situations, similar environments.”
“I want to give students the opportunity to meet alumni that work in their industry or the industry that they aspire to work in, or even up to the specific company or organization that they want to work with,” she added.
“Connections are so important nowadays,” McKeen continued. “Having the opportunity to go job shadow or create a mentorship, relationship, and learn or meet other people within those companies or organizations can really be an advantage to students.”
Final thoughts
When asked what McKeen would like to share with students ahead of the election, McKeen said she wants students to know how grateful she is to be running in the election with a slate of active Carleton community members.
“I just want to say that I’m extremely grateful to be running alongside such amazing people.”
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
