With experience, McCann & Brock look to redefine UCF

With the election of a new Student Government Association president and vice president less than a month away, senior political science and English major Matthew McCann and junior political science and advertising/public relations major Adam Brock hope to redefine the experience of a UCF student in their campaign for student body president and vice president, respectively.McCann is a former chief justice, who resigned earlier this year to run for office. He also served as the assistant chief justice his sophomore year and currently serves as the chair of the university fee committee. Brock, who serves under SGA president Michael Kilbride as Director of KnightLYNX, has worked on that program since his sophomore year. He also served on the student leadership committee his freshman year and served as a justice his sophomore year. He is currently president of the Interfraternity Council and chair of the scholarship committee which allocated almost $150,000 to students.

Central Florida Future: When did you first discuss  running together on a ticket?

Matthew McCann: Adam and I have both been heavily involved in SGA for the past several years. We've had a lot of great experiences really understanding what it means to be a part of SGA, what it means to be a student leader on campus and really a lot of the areas that could be improved. Students, groups, friends of mine would approach me, this year, and say, ‘We need someone to run for president that is going to maintain integrity and that is going to address the issues that students really are looking to have addressed.' Over time, as more and more students inside SGA and outside of SGA did approach me, I really started to put a lot of thought into it. One night, Adam and I and a group of friends were out and it came up again. I've been told from a lot of friends that Adam Brock is an excellent person that could really fill and reshape what it means to be a vice president within the UCF community. We just talked more and more about it and soon it developed into what it currently is.

CFF: After that was established, what was your next step?

McCann: There were a lot of next steps that needed to be taken. I was the chief justice at that point and it was my responsibility within SGA to remain neutral, so I had to resign from my position so that I could focus on this. Once I resigned, Adam and I just really started to get into the brunt of the work. We started thinking about ideas, we started attending different organization meetings, we started to discuss things with different students about how they felt UCF was just to gain ideas and have a better understanding of what we wanted to focus on.

CFF: How did you decide upon your campaign slogan, "Possibility Redefined"?

Adam Brock: "Possibility Redefined" was kind of a group effort. We really thought the two of us with our ideas and everything we want to do for the students, it needed to be symbolic of that. "Possibility Redefined" embodies what the students truly think about student government, what they think about it now and what we want them to think about it in the future. It's the approachability and the availability of student leaders, not only us, but our administration. We just need to make sure students have a very positive experience whenever they deal with the SGA and make sure they're leaving happy and with all their questions answered.

CFF: What are your three main platforms and how did you come up with them?

McCann: To boil it down, it's going to sounds cliché, but transparency, accessibility and inclusion. It seems as though every year with every campaign, with every candidacy these three things are brought up, but the problem is they're not always tended to as the year progresses. With transparency, it really has become cliché and just a trite word within student government. We need to make sure that our focus is on allowing students to better understand what student government is doing for them. There's this stigma in student government and outside student government that we are separate from the collective student body. That's not true, we're students as well and we want to make decisions that better our experience as well as every other student's experience.

That will make them more apt to come into the student government office and engage student government officials so that we can have their input and we can have their thoughts on what would make student government and their experience better.

At times, there seems to have been a barrier between the students and student leaders and we need to break that down. Inclusion is another thing. We understand that as student leaders, a lot of the times, some decisions have been made by one person or by one group of individuals in student government.

CFF: What endeavors started and/or completed by your predecessor do you plan on finishing or maintaining?

Brock: Obviously the KnightLYNX program is my goal. It's a brand-new program and it needs evaluation. Also, the new [24-hour] Study Space that's going to be released pretty soon, including all the many services that we offer. We hope to bring free printing to Rosen.

McCann: SGA Concierge was something that was spearheaded by the judicial counsel this past year and it relates back to transparency and approachability. It's our responsibility to actively engage students so that we do make the most well-informed decisions as student government leaders.