Q&A: Student Body President Jaleah Taylor shares plans for 2024-25 academic year

Summer University Editor Ananya Cox spoke with Student Body President Jaleah Taylor about advice for incoming students and her plans for the 2024-25 academic year.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

The Daily Tar Heel: What should the student body know about you?

Jaleah Taylor: I am a really open-minded person. I really love to work with people from any walks of life, backgrounds and perspectives, and that was kind of my whole vision when I ran my platform. Students are always welcome to come to my office, talk to me and they should know that I'm a student just like them.

DTH: What advice would you give to incoming students?

JT: Knowing the incoming class, I know that they're going to be ambitious, because we were ambitious when we came to Carolina. When you first get here, there are so many opportunities in your face and it becomes a little bit overwhelming, so I think the advice I would give to first-year students and transfer students is just to take it day by day. You don't have to have your whole four-year experience planned out, or even what major you want to do. Familiarizing yourself with the culture here is key to being successful at Carolina.

DTH: What have you been thinking about since you were elected?

JT: I like to say that I started the day I got elected. When you run for a role in this capacity, you often have all these different roles you want to accomplish, and once you get closer and elected into that role, you realize that maybe you can't get 40 things accomplished in one year. Maybe there's also things that come up at you, like the diversity, equity and inclusion decision made by the Board of Governors, as well as the campus protests that have been happening in our campus community, communities across the county and global communities.

Things that have been top-of-mind have been restoring peace at our University, which may include setting up different committees so that students truly feel heard and feel valued by administration. I've also been doing lots of work on DEI and making sure that students understand what is changing, what it staying, and because right now there is a lot of fear around potential programs going away. Another big part of my platform was about food security, because if you don't have access to food, you can't be successful here at Carolina, and hopefully we're able to get a meal swipe donation plan incorporated into the system here at UNC. I think the one thing that keeps me grounded is all the ambitious students that work in my administration and also all the students that are getting ready to come into Carolina.

DTH: How are you planning to handle changes in diversity, equity and inclusion requirements after they were removed by the Board of Governors in May, given that DEI has been an important topic in your campaign and plans for presidency?

JT: It's frustrating that some individuals don't see the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion. I think that just given political polarization in the past several years in this country, DEI has kind of been thrown around as a buzzword, and when you do that, it kind of starts to lose values. I've seen the power of diversity, equity and inclusion programs at our school. Even when you look at a program like Project Uplift, that is something that was created by Black students 50 years ago to get other Black students to come to Carolina, and that is something I see as a DEI program.

Our culture centers and student organizations aren't necessarily being touched. What's really happening on campus across the UNC System is that the words “diversity, equity and inclusion” will unfortunately be going away. I can speculate that those programs and Board of Governors policy based off of trainings sessions will be going away. What I've been doing recently is meeting with the chancellor as well as the provost to really get a good grasp on what actually staying and what's changing. The hope is that I will be able to communicate that to students very soon and channel the perspectives of different student organizations back to administrators.

DTH: What are your plans to keep transparent communication with UNC administration while also relaying the concerns of the student body and retaining communication with administration?

JT: I would absolutely say that transparency is still top-of-mind for my administration. The executive assistants in my office have been working on creating a Board of Trustees input form where students can make comments about what they would like the student body president to bring up in meetings. The Board of Trustees is a place that is very much siloed from the rest of the University and they're honestly making crucial decisions about the state of our University. When the school year comes, that form will remain open throughout my entire term. In my office we introduced co-directors of outreach who are responsible for communicating with student organizations across different realms, which allows us to fill them in on what student government has been doing, as well as them filling us in on what they've been doing.

DTH: Given student protests on campus that have happened all year, but escalated on LDOC and the two weeks of finals during the spring semester, and are expected to continue next year, how are you thinking about student voices and addressing the situation on campus?

JT: I think protesting is important. When I put out my statement about this matter, I said something about how protesting has been a part of this country, this nation, this University, and has oftentimes been the reason why people have rights. With that being said, I'm glad that the University reaffirmed their commitment to protesting, but I think what's also needed from the University and administration is to take another step in. The reason why these protests have been going on all year is because people haven't actually taken the time to listen to them and take them seriously. I think that's what we saw on the last day of class. When a group is constantly being ignored, they're going to look to other options so that they are heard.

The executive council has been evaluating different ways in which students can be heard and taken seriously by administrators. Our whole goal is to restore peace and make sure that students are heard. So, we've been looking at different advisory committees that have been created, where students can learn more about the endowment and how out investments work. In general, I think it's important for students to be involved in this process, as these are things that are impacting them as students, and globally. We've been forming a committee with respective stakeholders, such as people from our Finance and Operations Department.

DTH: Is there anything else you'd like to share?

JT: I really want students to know that their voice matters and that this administration values them. There's so many opportunities for students new to Carolina to get involved here. I think student government is really cool, because it exposes you to a side of the University that most students don't get to learn about. A lot of students just focus on their academics or the clubs that they're involved in, and they don't really get this broad scope of what's going on across the University. I know there's probably a lot of students coming in that were in student councils or in their student governments in high school, so this is a great segue into building on public service. I would say to just keep a lookout on the UNC executive branch Instagram page. I look forward to seeing all these students at Commencement.

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