Paige Vulgamore, junior in agricultural economics and global food systems leadership, and Jack O’Malley, sophomore in business, are running for student body president and vice president. 

Emily Howard, senior in sales and entrepreneurship, said Vulgamore and O’Malley have the experience necessary to be great leaders.

“They come from long lines of K-State families, and they’re also super involved,” Howard said. “They understand many different aspects of campus, whether that’s MSOs [Multicultural Student Organizations], or Greek life or SGA [Student Governing Association]. They’re involved in a lot of different things. They get to know a lot of different people, and they’ve used those connections to listen to all students.”

Paige Vulgamore, student body President

Vulgamore, student body president candidate, said her favorite part of attending Kansas State is the opportunities she’s presented with.

“I’m involved in several different organizations,” Vulgamore said. “Student government obviously, Student Alumni Board [and] I’m in a sorority here.”

Vulgamore said she decided to run for student body president because she wanted to have an influence on K-State students. 

“[SGA] is all student input and student decisions being made,” Vulgamore said. “I really wanted to be a bigger part of that and just impact as many students as I could and really hear out the voices of all students and represent them to the best of my abilities.”

Vulgamore said she and O’Malley met with students across campus to help determine their campaign pillars.

“As student body president and vice president the most important job is to represent student voices,” Vulgamore said. “We realized to do the best job representing students we needed to meet with as many from as many different walks of campus as we could, and so through that we’ve established three pillars for our platforms.” 

Vulgamore said the three pillars are voice, values and vision.

“We met with many students to hear their voice first,” Vulgamore said. “As we were listening to their voice and learning what was important to students all across campus, we learned about their values and what brings us all together to K-State and what unites us as K-Staters, and a lot of that is just our K-State pride and family feel. Then through that, we formed our vision for what we want the future of K-State to look like.”

Vulgamore said she and O’Malley are the best candidates for the position because of their “passion for K-State.”

“We’re willing to put in so much time and effort towards our goals through this campaign season,” Vulgamore said. “We’re not even in the real job yet and we’re dedicating so much time to it, and I don’t think that will ever stop.”

Vulgamore said, if elected, she hopes to improve communication between students and campus organizations.

“Outreach and helping students find [opportunities] and maybe find a place where they feel like they can really make a difference and have their voices heard on campus, I think we [K-State] could do a better job,” Vulgamore said. 

Jack O’Malley, student body Vice President

O’Malley, student body vice president candidate, said he had not considered running for student body vice president until Vulgamore asked him to run with her.

“There’s so many different things to be involved in here at K-State,” O’Malley said. “As I looked across different things I could involve myself in, I didn’t feel any of them would give me the chance to have a real impact like this position would. I remember thinking to myself, ‘How cool would it be if 10 years from now Paige and I came back to campus and something we started, something we did was still here helping students?’”

O’Malley said he would be a great student body vice president because his and Vulgamore’s campaign spans across campus.

“It’s been a long time at K-State since there has been a campaign that’s included the entire campus,” O’Malley said. “Usually campaigns focus on a small subset of K-State or one particular type of organization and we, from the start, have made it a point to include the entire campus and students from all over campus.” 

O’Malley said he hopes to change the way international students are accepted into K-State should he be elected.

“We met with a number of international students,” O’Malley said. “We learned that the way K-State uses GPA as a determinant for international students’ scholarships isn’t always fair because at their schools — we have a friend who is from Brazil and it is impossible to get a 4.0 at her high school — it’s just a different system than we have here in the U.S. For her to be held to the same standard that maybe students from Kansas are held to doesn’t make sense.”

O’Malley said he hopes to see K-State start to “push the boundaries of its potential.” 

“K-State is positioned to become the next-generation land grant university,” O’Malley said. “It has tons of potential, tons of resources, and I think we need to adopt a more forward-thinking attitude. … K-State, it really needs to think about what areas and what avenues has it not traditionally been involved in that they could really make an impact in.”

O’Malley said his campaign helped him realize how strong the K-State community is.

“This campaign has been a blast for me,” O’Malley said. “I’ve had the time of my life and wouldn’t change it for anything. That has really given me faith that K-State, through all the challenges it faces, through all the obstacles that will come in, we’re going to be okay. It’s because of the amazing people that make up the institution.”