Junior Caleb Cockrill shows leadership in role as SGA president

Caleb Cockrill is the Student Government Association president and a junior at Southeast Missouri State University. He is majoring in international business and entrepreneurship and was an SGA senator last year. Cockrill is a member of Lambda Chi Alpha and has continued to be active on campus since he was a freshman.

What are your main duties as Student Government Association President?

A lot of what I do is advocating for students, so we work in various ways with students: forums, getting outreach from senators toward their constituents. They get all of the student opinions and bring those back to senate meetings and then from there I take those opinions and relay them on to the administration.

So student government as a whole is kind of the bridge between the two parties, but my job in particular is a lot of that direct advocating, because a lot of the vice presidents and presidents [of the university], when they have a question, they will usually come to the president of student government.

What made you want to run for SGA president last spring?

I wasn't involved in high school, and I wanted to change that when I came into college. I got involved with Greek Life right away and a couple other organizations on campus.

Then my sophomore year, I chose to do student government. It was just a natural fit for my skill set. I really enjoyed getting to work with different projects, getting to work with different students and administrators.

So I thought in addition to the work I had done with senate, I would like to be president. There is so much you can do as a senator, but being president of the organization you get to directly work with the administrators, and it's really cool and is a unique side of the university that most students don't get to see.

What other organizations have you been involved with on campus?

I've been involved with Greek Life, I was on IFC for a short period of time. I'm also on a lot of university committees, more than I could even list because the list is getting too long to memorize anymore.

I was also in Student Medical Society for a while, and I've also been a participant in CSIS, which is the Center for Strategic International Studies, which is a week-long trip to D.C. for one of your classes. I've also done Greek Week steering committee. I was the canned food drive and fundraising chair for that.

How have those experiences in Greek Life and those other organizations shaped you as a leader?

I would say a lot of things. First, when I came to college I couldn't speak publicly to save my life. I could hardly even speak in a group of about five people because I was just so nervous and timid all the time.

So it really helped me to address those weaknesses I had, like public speaking, communicating, working in a group -- because that timid nature that I had really prevented me from doing those things in the past.

But I think with each of those experiences, it kind of put me a little more out in the open to where I'd have to face those weaknesses and put myself in that uncomfortable situation so that way I could grow from them.

How have you balanced your duties with SGA with your classes at Southeast?

I think a lot of my previous experiences helped me with that. So when I first came, I did a couple of leadership roles, and that helped me to better manage my time. And then slowly as I was getting older and progressing through my college career, I'd pick up a couple more things along the way. And then a couple more things.

So all those different experiences taught me to time manage, and now with being president, obviously it's a bit more of a challenge because it's a more extensive role than some of the other things I've held.

But that slow progression of learning how to time manage a little bit more each semester has helped me grow to have the ability to be president as well as do my schoolwork.

What do you want the impact of your leadership in SGA to be at Southeast?

I think for every leader, a lot of the leadership qualities aren't necessarily intrinsic, but they're how well you can motivate your peers to put themselves at their best, and I think the best leaders are those that can motivate others to go above and beyond what they believe they're capable of.

So, ultimately, what I'd like to leave with is feeling like I was able to make other people -- all the people around me, all my constituents -- push themselves to be the best that they can be and ultimately influence change that I couldn't as an individual, but they could as a collective whole.

What are the characteristics that you think make up a good leader?

I think with most leaders they tend to be charismatic. They're good with time management. They're good with goal-setting and planning. All of that common stuff you would see with most leaders.

I think they're also inclusive of everyone. They're good at putting a group together that has different views, and kind of uses those different views in a constructive way. So you're not going to have just one group of people and follow everything they say, but you're going to be looking at the situation holistically and finding the best approach to it.