I would say that one of my weaknesses or shortcomings is that I oftentimes find it hard to say no to people because I really want to do my best to help others in any capacity that I can. For me, this is always just kind of been a thing, personally, where I like to help out others at any chance I get. So if someone comes to me and asks, if I have the time, I may or if I have the availability to kind of help them out, I try to make sure that I can fully commit to them before answering. But a lot of the times I find myself making the decision of helping them out even though like sometimes my schedule might be a little too much. I think this could interfere with the position of VP of Operations because in this position, there are a lot of details that you need to work out. Whether that’s communicating with Eboard, or simply with other staff members, a lot of times, and what I can foresee is that a lot of people will be coming to me to ask for help. And I think with that, a lot of it’s learning that in the position that I have, that I have the responsibility as well to kind of making sure that all the responsibilities are handed out to the correct person. I think one way that I can overcome it is making sure that from the get go that everyone kind of knows what they need to do. So that way, whenever they do have questions, they kind of are able to find the right person to make sure that they get the correct information from. So for me personally, like I said, I do like to help out in any capacity that I can. But I also think that the main way to overcome that to make sure that I personally as well as the person who’s asking for help, is not overwhelmed by anything, would be to make sure that like I said, the responsibilities are kind of listed from the get go.

So, during the fall semester, I was completing my senior year at Auburn University in mechanical engineering. And in order to complete that degree, we have to take part of our senior design capstone project, which is a year long semester project. And during the fall semester, we basically were only graded on our midterm presentation and our final presentation. So we had weekly checkups with our faculty advisor and essentially when we got to our midterm presentation, our design wasn’t as up to standards for our faculty advisor, even though we kind of relay to our device and showed him our design as to what it was by that point. So when we went to our midterm presentation, we realized quickly based off of his feedback that we essentially had to redesign our whole project again. So from there, it was really kind of like an all hands on deck type situation for me and my team members. And we essentially had to come up with a new device that would be more versatile for our requirements. And overall, I think we handled it really well because by the time that we made it to our final presentation, we were able to kind of have our prototype and our working model on SolidWorks to kind of be able to detail how all of our parts are kind of going to interface with each other. So I think, if it wasn’t for the feedback that we got during our midterm presentation, our final device wouldn’t have been as again, versatile as it was at the end.

For me, personally, how I like to give feedback and criticism. I kinda want to make sure that I talk to that person one on one individually because I know that sometimes different Setting if you kind of call someone out based on their personality, and it can kind of come off as like you’re attacking them, which is the one thing that we want to avoid, because we want to make sure that the person that we are giving the feedback or criticism to is fully listening to what we’re saying. So personally, I like to have a side conversation with them and then by the time that our conversation is done, making sure that every other issue that we need to address is kind of talked about within whatever setting that you’re in if you’re like with a team or if you’re kind of in an individual setting or not.

So I’d say that the current pillars for UVSASE would kind of be based off of the four things listed as unity, leadership, culture, and then development and advancement. I believe that these four kind of pillars based off of the mission kind of essentially effectively describes what UVSASE kind of does this whole organization based off of the current programming, I believe the strongest thing that we have is our unity and leadership development. I believe that the three annual events that the SE hosts do pretty great at making sure that our members kind of are actively participating in the programming to kind of develop their personal and professional skills. However, I think the weakest pillar would kind of be the participation, I guess, within the individual constituent schools, and with the 19 schools that we have within the region, I believe that sometimes it is more difficult to kind of have that collaboration within the schools based on distance. But I believe that if we are able to kind of overcome that weakness, we will be stronger as a whole region. And that way everyone within the region kind of becomes more familiar with each other and feels more comfortable to kind of network and establish a community that they feel safe and comfortable with. 

I think one way that we can improve this pillar as an executive board member would to kind of essentially promote the cross collaborations between schools. I think on the surface level, saying that would be kind of easy to do, but in reality, kind of diving deeper into the logistics of like the locations of the schools to see what events that exist, that the schools need each other can kind of collaborate with. Personally, when I was president of the BSA at Auburn, we did our first collaboration event with VSs at UAB and that was a lot of work. But I think with the help of the previous IVP, board member, that kind of gives us the initial push to collaborate with each other. And I think being able to just kind of expose that information to the presidents and the Eboard also will kind of get the individual schools executive boards kind of excited to interact with another schools eboard rather than keeping it just on their local campus. I think, for them, seeing how they connect with other schools within their region, as well as like schools that are kind of close nearby them can also help them establish that network within the different schools to kind of start a whole line of events that could possibly occur annually between the collaborations of the constituent schools.

I would say with the current state of our country and everything that is going on, and making sure that all of our members are healthy and safety would be the number one priority. So although we wouldn’t be able to kind of host the physical events, I believe that making sure that everyone if everyone can remain healthy, I think that might be a nice segway to kind of introduce a new type of event that would be able to be easily accessed by the members. This could be maybe like a virtual type event. But there are some technicalities within that, that we would kind of have to straightened out before it would actually be done.  I think if we aren’t able to host the bigger events where a lot of the interpersonal networking is really developed within the Southeast accrues, I think, what we can do to kind of overcome that would kind of be hosting more casual type events, virtually through like our discord or like online streaming events that help students and members kind of be able to get to know one another before we kind of break the awkwardness. That would be if it was in person. I think another way to keep them engaged would to kind of reach out to each schools and seeing how they…some plans that they have. Like I know some schools are hosting like Netflix parties or something casual like that, I think on the scale of having casual events, if we could do something like that to engage all of our members to make sure that they are participating and having fun within the Southeast I think would be important. But we on the other scale of that could also host seminars or webinars that provide information to the Southeast to help use our platform to promote the Vietnamese culture, as well as other topics that are currently going on within the nation, I think would also benefit the constituent schools in a great manner to kind of open up discussions between their individual school members as well as a topic within the SE.

As I mentioned earlier about how I prefer to give feedback, criticism, I think, if the director or Eboard member is not fulfilling their duties, and it’s being noticed, beyond what my personal thoughts, and those thoughts are kind of voice within a group, I think what needs to be done is, again, having that side conversation, and if I notice at first maybe kind of having that conversation with them to the side of seeing if they are kind of just overwhelmed with the responsibilities and tasks that they have to fulfill and seeing what I can do to kind of help them overcome any kind of interferences that they are facing. Whether it’s like through their personal life or just a busy schedule, making sure that they have the resource that they need to be successful in that position beyond just any like life event that is occurring. I also want to make sure that we give them the opportunity to be successful in their responsibility. But if the individual again is not fulfilling their responsibilities after that conversation, I think from there, we would kind of have to discuss possibly removing that person if it is a constant negligence to the position because as you sign up for the position, you kind of are responsible for knowing the information ahead of time of the expectations that you are given. So if you are unable to fulfill those positions and it’s an ongoing issue that is or a re-occurring issue that occurs, then that individual isn’t giving their best to the organization and therefore isn’t benefiting that position. Whereas if we were able to kind of disperse their responsibilities or even find another person who would suit that position, as difficult as of a decision that would be, it would have to be done to make sure that the organization is impacted for the better.

I really began with having that conversation with them because again, I wouldn’t want to air out any negative emotions or feelings on a grander scale than it has to be. If the two individuals are able to kind of overcome their negative emotions toward each other, to realize that they both are on the same organization that’s working towards a goal to help other people on a grander scale rather than the fight or the the negative, I guess mindspace that both of them are in. I think it’s more of making sure that they realize that beyond their personal thoughts or relationships with one another, that they are working towards making sure that this organization benefits others. So if they are unable to complete their deadline, then making sure that the rest of the ExecutiveBoard or other staff members take up the responsibilities to ensure that the deadlines are met and then beyond or once the deadlines have been met, making sure that the two individuals know that their personal issues cannot get in the way of completing the tasks that they are responsible for. And if it continually does get in the way, then further actions or discussions will have to be taken to make sure that the organizations and the tasks are put at the forefront rather than the feelings towards the both members.

The first thing I would do is making sure to isolate the member as well as the person who’s being accused and making sure that they are in separate quarters so that we get both side of the stories. From there, I believe that from the get go, they should know that the SE does not tolerate harassment of any form. So, therefore, the measures that would have to be taken would be making sure that if the person was harassed that they get the medical attention as well as the emotional support that they need to overcome their experience or the event that occurred to them and making sure that the person who is being accused would have to be kind of removed from the event to make sure that, that event doesn’t overcome the professional skills or the interpersonal skills that other members could be learning from the event, because although they are separate situations, we want to make sure that the person who was harassed is taken care of while making sure that the other attendees of the event are still gaining all that they can for the event.