Last week, The Retriever sat down with former SGA vice president, Valerie Parks, and spoke about her time in office. This week, we followed up by meeting with our current SGA president, fifth-year music education major Bentley Corbett-Wilson.
Since his first semester as a freshman, Corbett-Wilson has been noticeably active at UMBC, when he was a part of the Discovery Living Learning Community and the First Year Council. Since then, he has been on numerous teams and projects at UMBC, including (seb), pep band, wind ensemble, symphony orchestra, Pi Kappa Phi and ODK, a leadership honors society. He was also at one point a Strive coach and Student Director of the pep band.
Corbett-Wilson first explained exactly what he does as SGA president. “My overarching role is to do two things: to represent SGA and the student body to the administration and to set the tone and example for how SGA will be run.” He then elaborated on what purpose SGA, as a whole, serves. “Our job is connecting with any and all students here at UMBC and to further their vision of whatever change they want to see on campus.”
Corbett-Wilson went on to speak about how honored he still feels to be put in the position of SGA president. “The whole experience is so rewarding. I get to hear so many awesome, different ideas from the students and other SGA members. It has been great for building my leadership skills. It is extremely busy and there’s always something to do, but it’s nonetheless an honor,” he said.
“SGA has had a bad rep in recent years for a few reasons. Along with the few individuals who caused all of the drama in the last few years, SGA has only been present and transparent during the election process. After the election process, SGA has always seemed to creep back into the shadows, ” Corbett-Wilson explained. “We are currently in the process of turning that reputation around. We are making it a goal to be more transparent this year. We plan on increasing our presence on social media as well as going out on campus and physically reaching out to students and getting their feedback and ideas on campus involvement.”
Corbett-Wilson is looking forward to a successful and productive term in SGA. He is specifically interested in collaborating with sustainability, mental health and cultural groups across the campus.
He invites anyone to come visit him or any other SGA staff at their office on the second floor of The Commons, to the right of the Mosaic Center. He remarked, “It’s funny, I was talking to another student the other day and they actually told me that a lot of people think I’m intimidating. I promise I’m not. Feel free to swing by my office at any time and say hello or talk about whatever ideas you may have. It’s what I’m here for!”
