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Election Day is finally here. Millions of Americans are heading to the polls, political analysts are waiting with bated breath and soon the world will know who the next president of the United States will be.

At Virginia Commonwealth University, students elect two new student government association presidents each year — one for the Monroe Park Campus and one for the MCV Campus. As the U.S. presidential campaign careened toward the finish line, we checked in with eight former SGA presidents to see what they have been up to since graduating from VCU. 

 

Candace Tiana Nelson, Monroe Park Campus president, 1997-98

Candace Tiana Nelson was born on Election Day. So much about her life seems to follow with logical order from that simple twist of fate.

“Politics is just my interest,” Nelson said. “It’s my thing. It always has been.”

Nelson’s congenital appreciation for politics and governance strengthened when she was a student at VCU. It started when she voted for the first time, casting a ballot with pride as an 18-year-old freshman. By the time she graduated, she had interned with Mark Warner’s campaign for the U.S. Senate, served as an SGA senator, worked as an assistant for former Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder and run a successful campaign to become president of the SGA. Her major, of course, was political science.

Nelson, a Winchester, Virginia, native, said VCU was an exciting place for her the moment she arrived on campus. The university seemed large and full of possibilities.

“I feel like that time in my life is when I really came alive,” said Nelson, who also served as a Rams cheerleader.

Today, politics continue to be a central part of her life. Nelson serves as president of the Ward 4 Democrats in Washington, D.C. In that position, she organizes events for the ward and helps advocate for the Democratic Party. Most prominently, she was elected to serve as a delegate at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, where she formally cast a vote for D.C. Democrats for Hillary Clinton. For a die-hard party member and political junkie, the experience was a thrill.

“It was great to be in that room for that event and to feel the amazing energy in there,” she said. “I laughed and cried and had an incredible time.”

Nelson, who works full time as a program manager in the D.C. Department of Employment Services, finds that her SGA experience taught her a lesson that remains true in her role with the Ward 4 Democrats. If you want to take a stand on issues and advocate for what you believe in, you have to be ready for people to disagree with you — even dislike you. “You can’t let that keep you from doing what you want to do,” she said. 

Nelson hopes VCU’s current students feel the courage of their convictions and take a critical step this year and every year, around the time her birthday rolls around. “Vote,” she said. “It’s such a powerful thing.”

 

Eddie O’Leary, Monroe Park Campus president, 2005-06

After graduating from VCU's College of Humanities and Sciences with a degree in political science in 2007, Eddie O’Leary landed a job in the Virginia House of Delegates.

As SGA president, he had lobbied the General Assembly on issues such as higher education funding, campus safety and textbook prices, so the job was a great way to get a firsthand look at state politics.

“I was on the clerk’s staff, doing information technology [work]. That’d always been a hobby of mine — not something I’d ever done professionally — but it was a great way to get a behind-the-scenes look at everything,” he said.

Over the next few years, O’Leary became more and more interested in website design and development. By 2008, he’d decided to leave the House of Delegates to launch his own company, and digital agency CO+LAB was born. Toward the end of 2009, CO+LAB hired its first employee, Ralph Otto. It’s now hiring its 20th.

“We do tons and tons of business in Richmond. … That’s something we’re really, really proud of and it’s very fulfilling to me personally,” O’Leary said. “But we’re also starting to do a lot more business nationally — a lot in the health care space, a lot in real estate, real estate development. All kinds of stuff. It’s been a pretty crazy ride in the last few years.”

The company has been included on Richmond BizSense’s RVA 25 list, which ranks the region’s fastest growing businesses. And it was recognized in Fortune Magazine for being ranked by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City as one of the country’s fastest-growing inner-city companies in 2016.

O’Leary’s time in VCU student government prepared him to lead his own company, he said.

“You have to keep in mind, I was just a kid who wasn’t even sure what he wanted to do in college,” he said. “And all of a sudden I’m in charge of the SGA with a 12-person staff, meeting with [then-VCU President] Dr. Trani all the time. We really, really cared. We were living and breathing it. It was like an 80-hour-a-week job because we wanted to be doing it. We saw an opportunity to make a difference for the students and took it really seriously.”

After he was elected president, he actually wanted to quit when faced with the realization that he would have to address thousands of students at convocation.

“I was so scared to speak in front of so many people, I wanted to resign,” he said. “But I did it, and it went really well. … Now, when I have to do public speaking or when I have to go to a board meeting and negotiate with people and get big deals done or big contacts signed, I feel a lot more confident. And I also learned a lot more about professionalism, and how to fight the right battles.”

Being SGA president, he said, was an incredible experience that changed his life. “It is not a stretch to say that it changed my trajectory completely,” he said.

 

Addie Briggs, MCV Campus president, 1996-97

Before serving as MCV SGA president, Church Hill-native Addie Briggs graduated from Richmond’s Armstrong High School as class valedictorian and earned a scholarship to attend Howard University. 

“I grew up poor and I knew the only way I was going to college was if I got a scholarship,” Briggs said. “I figured out in eighth grade I was going to have to work hard and make the grades because I needed the money.” 

The diligent work ethic Briggs developed as a child persisted throughout her life, eventually bringing her back to Richmond from D.C. to attend the VCU School of Medicine. She says serving as MCV SGA president was a highlight of her academic career. 

“Everything I set out to do as president got done and I realized the power one voice can have,” she said. 

As president, Briggs helped add bus stops between campuses and had shelters built at campus bus stops. She also campaigned to have a swimming pool built at the MCV Campus Recreation Center. 

In addition to the opportunities to make a difference on campus, Briggs enjoyed the presidential perks of monthly meetings with former VCU President Eugene Trani, Ph.D., and meetings with other business and government leaders. “It gave me the opportunity to be around people who were in powerful positions and to see how they operated at work,” Briggs said. “That helped me develop my leadership skills.”

After graduating from VCU and completing a pediatric residency at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Briggs opened a pediatric practice in Richmond. As the solo practitioner at East End Pediatrics, Briggs provides patients with a book at each appointment. “My slogan is: Readers are leaders,” she said. “If we can get kids to read early and make reading a part of their life, they will have a better chance of excelling academically.” 

 

Guy Davis, Monroe Park Campus president, 1984

When he enrolled at VCU, Guy Davis was intrigued by the wheels and cogs of how the institution operated. He started a Bachelor of General Studies program (interdisciplinary studies today) in the College of Humanities and Sciences, gathering the building blocks that would lead him to a successful career in higher education and human services.

“At VCU it was a time of change and a time of growth, and a positive experience,” he said. The student senate was formed in 1980, with senators elected from academic schools and units, Davis said.

Davis grew up in Richmond, graduating from Open High School before starting college out of state. When he returned to attend VCU, he was a resident of the then-new Gladding Residence Center.

After he became involved with student government, he pushed the student senate to move elections from fall to spring. Davis was elected to the senate and served as president in the spring semester of 1984, but cut his own term short to become founding president of the Beta Nu Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Lambda Fraternity.

“It was a fairly seamless transition,” he said.

Davis worked and started his graduate studies at VCU before completing his master’s degree at the University of Iowa. The contrast between those schools — urban and small-town, up-and-coming and traditional — helped him appreciate the differences between organizations.

“VCU had a level of ethnic diversity that other schools were still working toward. It really set me up in terms of looking at institutional type and student experience,” he said. “VCU and SGA showed me at the time a much more urban university, with many people from the local area.”

Davis has found a pocket of fellow VCU alums at his current job. He serves as program consultant for education and assessment at his fraternity’s headquarters just outside Indianapolis. Five colleagues, including Executive Director Jeremy Slivinski, are Rams.

“We have a good time talking about it, the differences from their experience, and mine, and Jeremy’s,” he said. “It’s so different now. It’s grown and evolved.”

 

Jessica Lee, Monroe Park Campus president, 2007-08

As SGA president, Jessica Lee and her team were ready for a fight when they met with then-VCU President Eugene Trani in 2008 to ask him to sign the University Presidents’ Climate Agreement.

“My team had overprepared,” she said. “But he agreed. It took some of us a few minutes to realize what had even happened. We were stunned. I laughed pretty hard about it once the meeting was over.”

When Lee graduated later that year with a degree in political science from the College of Humanities and Sciences, she landed a job working with former city councilman Bill Pantele, a lawyer she met through the SGA.

“It was a great experience that helped set me down this path,” she said. “I then worked at the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, before enrolling in UVA Law in 2009.”

Today an attorney at the University of California Hastings College of the Law’s Center for WorkLife Law, Lee works to prevent and fight gender discrimination in the workplace and in education. Her favorite area of focus is leading the Pregnant Scholar Initiative, advancing policies to prevent discrimination against pregnant and parenting students, and helping them stay in school. Before working at Hastings Law, she was a fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she engaged in litigation and advocacy on a broad range of human rights issues.

“It may sound unbelievable, but my whole life is different because of [the SGA],” Lee said. “Not only did I get hard skills, like budgeting, lobbying and a sick mastery of Roberts Rules of Order, but I am a different person because of the people I worked with. We are a big school, and most of us don’t get to know that many of the people around us, but as student body president, you get to meet, learn from and work for the benefit of thousands of your fellow Rams. I’m still so thankful to have had the opportunity to be their advocate and share in their journey.  And to this day my favorite people and many of my closest friends are those I met through SGA.”

Lee encourages all students to get involved.

“It will be hard to find another time in your life where you will encounter that many talented and passionate people in one place,” she said. “Making those connections and using them to make a difference gets infinitely harder the second you graduate — so make the most of it while you can.”

 

Phillip Wong, MCV Campus president, 2013-14

As an undergraduate health sciences student at Boston University, Philip Wong worked as a technician at a local CVS Pharmacy. 

“I saw the pill-dispensing portion of pharmacy when I worked at CVS,” he said. “When I got to school I realized pharmacists play a huge role in making sure medications are appropriate for patients, making sure they are prescribed in the correct dosages and just helping patients understand why they are taking certain medications.”

Early in his academic career at VCU School of Pharmacy, Wong decided he wanted to pursue clinical pharmacy after graduating. Clinical pharmacists work directly with physicians, other health professionals and patients to ensure that the medications prescribed for patients contribute to the best possible health outcomes. They practice in health care settings where they have frequent interactions with physicians and other health professionals, contributing to better coordination of care. 

“I felt like limiting myself to pharmacy organizations was sheltering me from interacting with students from other health care disciplines,” Wong said of his motivation for joining the MCV Campus SGA. “I knew when I went into practice I would be interacting with other health sciences professionals and being involved in the MCV SGA was a good way to get ready for what I would experience in the real world.” 

As MCV SGA president from 2013 to 2014, Wong helped create the joint student government association, which combined members of the MCV Campus SGA with members of the Monroe Park Campus SGA. “I previously had very little interaction with students on the Monroe Park Campus,” Wong said. “They had similar issues to the issues we faced on the MCV Campus.” Wong utilized the joint SGA meetings as opportunities to mentor undergraduate students who were considering applying for a health sciences graduate school.

Since graduating with his Pharm.D. in 2015, Wong has worked as a clinical pharmacist at hospitals in Richmond and Orlando, Florida, with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “Seeing patients leave the hospital in a better state than they were when then came in is the most rewarding aspect of the job,” he said.

 

Ali Faruk, Monroe Park Campus president, 2006-07

Ali Faruk never imagined he’d be the SGA president. “I never thought of myself as a leader, just a team player,” Faruk said. 

But when the president at the time encouraged him to run, Faruk, who was a graduate student in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs and had been involved with student government since his freshman year at VCU, realized just how strongly he cared about many issues facing his fellow students and decided he should run.

Faruk spent his year as president advocating for students at all levels of the university and beyond, including at the Virginia General Assembly, where he pushed for increases in higher education funding. He was particularly struck by how many VCU students worked part- or full-time jobs, and he looked for ways the university could make their lives easier. 

One day during exam week, he visited Cabell Library. “The library was very cramped back then,” he said. He used his phone to take pictures of students studying on the floor, in the middle of bookshelves and even on the staircase. 

“I sent them to the BOV and cc-ed the provost. ‘We really need to do something about improving study space because this is what students have to do during exam time,’” he wrote in the email. “Even to this day, I’m told by people [who work] in the library that they remember that moment.”

Faruk’s SGA experience has influenced his career in the nonprofit and government sectors. “The most important thing I learned was how crucial it is to advocate for people,” he said. “You might think, if someone has a problem they can just go talk about it. But that’s not the case. There are people who are vulnerable. It’s crucial for us to make sure we’re listening and advocating for people who can’t speak for themselves.”

Currently a senior policy analyst at the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services, Faruk has had previous stints at the Virginia Interfaith Council, HOME (Housing Opportunities Made Equal) and the Virginia Department of Aging. 

When he looks back at the many hours spent in student government at VCU, Faruk views it as time well-spent. 

“I work a great deal in politics now, and all the lessons I learned in SGA have really helped in my career…. I work with a lot of people I met while I was at VCU and I built those relationships in student government.”

 

Adele McClure, Monroe Park Campus president, 2010-11

As a freshman business student, Adele McClure wanted to join an organization that would provide an opportunity to serve the student body and contribute to the overall advancement of VCU. She ran for the Monroe Park Campus SGA senate that year and remained in student government through her senior year, when she served as SGA president.

Among her many distinctions — including helping to establish Qatar Day in Richmond — McClure’s tenure coincided with the VCU men’s basketball team Final Four run.

“Every SGA member came together in a matter of hours to locate the funds necessary to send students to Texas,” she said. “SGA hosted universitywide watch parties and provided T-shirts and food for the students who remained in Richmond. It was a very exciting time and we were all proud to be students at VCU.”

McClure’s interest in politics remains to this day. Since graduating from the School of Business with a degree in economics, she has worked on several political campaigns and has met President Barack Obama. She recently completed a program at the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia and works at Deloitte Consulting LLP. She also volunteers on the Executive Committee for the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness in Arlington and serves on the VCU Alumni Board of Governors and as an election officer in Northern Virginia. 

Her time with the SGA refined her ability to juggle so many multiple projects with limited time, McClure said.

“SGA provided me with the opportunity to leave a long-lasting impact on VCU and the student body,” she said.

 

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