Martin School Celebrates First Student Body President, Andrew Laws
This year, in addition to celebrating the first cohort of public policy graduates, the Martin School is also proud to announce that one of our own public policy undergraduate students, Andrew Laws, is the 2022-23 student body president. Andrew was sworn in at the end of the spring 2022 semester, and spent the summer meeting with top UK administrators, attending his first Board of Trustees meeting, and getting the lay of the land. Now at the start of the fall 2022 semester, Andrew’s administration has hit the ground running, recruiting the next group of leaders into the Student Government Association (SGA), ensuring vital student services are functional, and funding student organizations and activities.
Andrew first joined SGA when he was elected to be an undergraduate senator-at-large at the end of his first year. Shortly after his election, UK shut down in-person operations due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so Andrew served his first year in SGA via Zoom. After being re-elected to SGA, Andrew was also selected to serve as the Chair of the Appropriations and Revenue (A&R) Committee. This is one of the most important positions in SGA, as the chair handles funding for student organizations. “Obviously the SGA has a huge budget, and we want to that money back to the students and student organizations. So, I took it on as a huge responsibility just to help student organizations because that’s something I really care about is that every student should have that community to go to,” Andrew remarked on his time as A&R Chair. Although Andrew enjoyed A&R, his career aspirations in law and possibly in political office compelled him to consider running for SGA president. After lots of deliberation, encouragement from friends and colleagues pushed him to submit his candidacy.
Andrew’s campaign had three central tenets – student belonging and engagement, accessibility and transparency, and holistic health and wellbeing. The Laws-Pace ticket won in the first ranked-choice election at UK, which took place in spring 2022. Now that his administration has officially taken control, the top priority for Andrew is leaving a legacy of students understanding SGA and its role in furthering their interests on campus. His overall interest in SGA, and in his planned career path, is to serve others and make people’s lives materially better. For Andrew, a big part of belonging is having a community you can rely on and participating in student organizations is a great way to find that. He also emphasized his role as a liaison for UK students with UK administration. “I hope to get a ton of emails all the time from people hoping to talk… I want to serve UK students and make their voices heard.”
His advice for students hoping to get involved with SGA was simple: “You could reach out to anyone in SGA and they would be happy to talk to you. You can also just come into the office physically; we have a nice office in the student center and you can walk right in and talk to us.” Andrew is committed to serving students and raising the profile of SGA among the student body during his term as president. We in the Martin School couldn’t be prouder of his hard work and integrity and can’t wait to see what the year holds!
To get in touch with Andrew, please email SGA.President@uky.edu or visit the SGA office in room A267 in the Gatton Student Center. You can learn more about SGA on their website: http://uksga.org.