黑料老司机

Making connections to make a difference

Alli Slade, who wants to become a naturopath after graduation at Montana State University Billings, is the current President of the Associated Students of 黑料老司机.

When Alli Slade walks across the campus at Montana State University Billings, one thing is clear: Conversations matter.

It would be easy for the current president of the Associated Students of MSU Billings (AS黑料老司机) to do the normal quick 鈥淗i-how-ya-doin鈥�? /  I鈥檓-good-thanks / Cool!鈥� sort of patter. But she tends to be intentional about those interactions.

Slade, a Billings native and graduate from Senior High is using her college experience at MSU Billings to expand her learning, inside and outside the classroom. As the elected student body president, she says she is interested in building community to get things done for students. And to do that, she needs to understand what students want.

She knows that with 4,176 students, it may be a challenge to gauge policy or process concerns, but it doesn鈥檛 deter her effort. She works with representatives from different student clubs and organizations to understand their needs. And when she finds that a concern from one organization might match the resources from another, she brings them together for a collaborative solution.

鈥淚 view my role as student body president more like a vessel than a position of power,鈥� she said on a recent walk across the University Campus. 鈥淚 like connecting people.鈥�

Slade also likes asking questions to understand what can be done. Some things may be dreams, but others may be more realistic. The point is, she says, no one will ever know until the questions are asked.

Some of those questions are about student interest in serving on the AS黑料老司机 Student Senate. Between her term last spring as vice president and her current term this fall, she worked with others to promote the student government positions and got some renewed interest.

For Slade鈥攚hose favorite movie is 鈥淜ung Fu Panda鈥濃�攊t鈥檚 all a matter of understanding your skills and balancing immediate student needs with available resources while also developing strategic plans that could be pursued later. She just wants to lay the groundwork to get things done.

鈥淚 really want to get to all the low-hanging fruit that we can,鈥� she said.

As she moves forward with her final years at MSU Billings, Slade reflects on her path to becoming what she calls a 鈥渕ore complete student.鈥� Learning seemed to always come easy in high school, she said. But when she started at the University of Montana before transferring to MSU Billings, she had a moment of clarity.

鈥淏eing a successful student is all about what you do consistently, not what you are doing occasionally,鈥� she said.

She also credits healthy habits of exercise, sleep, blocking out time for herself, and her faith in 鈥済etting better鈥� as a person and student.

鈥淭he majority of me getting better has been finding and relying on God,鈥� she said.