The SUNY Oswego campus is finally buzzing again with the return of most pre-pandemic activities for the 2021-22 academic year, for SUNY Oswego Student Association (SA) President Takayla Beckon she is using this energy to her advantage.
Beckon does not need much help in the enthusiasm column when it comes to student involvement at SUNY Oswego, she has a natural want and drive to help all students around her. She wants a sense of community at SUNY Oswego that she believes is achievable with her “amazing” staff.
“A successful year to me would be making sure the students are heard and making sure that anything that they need is attended to by me,” Beckon said. “First over the plans that I have set and finishing the plans set by previous years, I want to make sure they are finished and future generations do not have to worry about them.”
Beckon did not know of SA when she first came to SUNY Oswego, she actually was trying to organize a group that would accomplish things similarly to the association. That is when she realized that being a member of SA would give her the opportunity to conquer ideas she had set out.
“I did not know about SA until last year,” Beckon said. “When I tried to set out to create an organization like SA … I found out that SA is like the organization I was trying to make, unintentionally. I was still trying to advocate for students without being in a position, I had a whole team of leaders, who we saw many things on campus that we just wanted to fix and we had steps to take.”
She found out quickly that SA would give her a platform to fight for the wants and needs of students through a conversation with the past SA president. This inspired Beckon to have a platform to truly put the student’s best interests first. After talking to her team, family members and mentors, Beckon was given the reassurance to “go for it.” That support is still there for the young leader to keep pushing forward as herself.
“[My mom] said ‘You don’t have to change who you are, you just have to be yourself,’” Beckon said. “It is not something that I feel I need to change myself to be. I love just being there, this doesn’t feel like a job to me. Doing something for the students does not feel like a job to me, it is just something I [naturally] do.”
The agenda for Beckon is based on expanding the access of student organizations on campus and scheduling special events for the students around campus. This means opening the registration for new student organizations for the first time in a few years and making it easier for clubs to ask for an appropriate budget for their organization.
“We are trying to make a solid and reliable student organization registration process, we have not accepted any new ones in a while and I want to ASAP,” Beckon said. “We are also working on a whole bunch of events. We are hosting the ‘Oz Got Talent’ which is actually going to be at the end of the semester.”
According to Beckon, the excitement of coming out of the dark days of COVID-19 has created a great opportunity to accomplish her agenda and create more life on campus. She sees this year in a very positive light.
“It is going be a dope year,” Beckon said.
