Khavy Pham

VP of Programs

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Current Location: Auburn, AL

Current Status: Undergraduate - Junior

Affiliated School: Auburn University

Experience

Auburn VSA
-Operations Committee/Operations Director (2023-2024)

UVSASE
-Gala Committee
-FPC Associate
-Olympics Associate (2023-2024)

Biography

Hi everyone, I’m Khavy -like coffee- Pham and I am a third year Law and Justice major, and I will be graduating from Auburn University in August. When I first started my college journey, I had dreamt of finding a community where I felt accepted. Coming from a small town that is predominantly white, I felt like I was never able to fully express myself and embrace my cultural heritage. When I found out about VSA, I couldn't have been happier. Finding like-minded individuals whom I can relate to and who can relate to me, VSA is a place where I feel heard, supported, respected, and understood. I no longer had to suppress my Asian identity in order to fit in. Just as VSA has been for me, I hope to create a safe environment for others who feel or have felt the same way I did.

Personal Statement

My vision for this term centers on fostering a vibrant, inclusive community where every member feels valued, empowered, and inspired to contribute. I aim to implement initiatives that bolster our members' professional, cultural, and personal development, creating a nurturing environment where everyone can thrive. By enhancing our outreach and engagement strategies, I envision a UVSASE that not only grows in numbers but deepens in the quality of experiences it offers, making our association a beacon for aspiring leaders within the Vietnamese student community and beyond. I hope to launch innovative programs and workshops that cater to the diverse interests and needs of our members, significantly increasing active participation. I would like to develop a comprehensive mentorship and training program aimed at equipping our staff and future executive board with the skills necessary for their roles and beyond. My involvement with AUVSA and UVSASE leadership roles sharpened my skills in team management, event planning, and strategic communication. These experiences taught me the importance of empathy, resilience, and innovation in leadership—qualities I plan to bring to my role on the board. Having navigated the challenges of engaging a diverse member base, I have a keen understanding of what it takes to build a cohesive, motivated community, and I am eager to apply these insights to enrich UVSASE. Joining the board is a pathway to personal and professional growth. I wish to gain deeper insights into effective leadership and organizational management, further refining my ability to inspire and lead teams. Additionally, I look forward to the invaluable opportunity to work closely with a team of dedicated individuals, learning from their experiences and perspectives. This role represents a chance to contribute meaningfully to a community I hold dear while developing skills that will serve me well into the future.

Application Questions & Responses

From my understanding of UVSASE’s mission, I believe the organization strives to promote unity, empower the upcoming generations, and progress our community.

I hope to contribute to this aspect of the mission by facilitating cross-state initiatives that bring together schools from within the region. By organizing and participating in cultural, educational, and social events, we can create a shared space for dialogue, exchange, and mutual support. This will not only strengthen the bonds among our members but also cultivate a sense of a larger community beyond state lines. I would like to develop and deliver leadership workshops and cultural education programs tailored to individuals who are interested in Vietnamese culture. Drawing on my personal experiences with AUVSA and UVSASE, I aim to mentor and guide young individuals in understanding their cultural heritage, developing their leadership skills, and applying these abilities for the betterment of the Asian community. This could involve setting up mentorship programs, leadership seminars, and cultural retreats. To further advance our community, I want to start and support projects that address specific community needs, such as cultural programs for members and professional networking events to enhance career opportunities. By leveraging partnerships with local businesses, educational institutions, and other community organizations, we can create a synergistic effect that amplifies our impact.

Although I feel like UVSASE is a well-established organization, I would like to deepen our community’s connection with Vietnamese heritage and traditions, ensuring every member, regardless of their background, has the opportunity to explore and celebrate the richness of Vietnamese culture. I wish that there were more events and programs aside from SELC and Olympics since those are the only times schools really come together. I would like to bring back something similar to Element where individuals learned about leadership and culture. Honestly, since I don’t know the behind the scenes of the executive board that well, I cannot suggest any major changes that I am confident in. If I was VPP, that lack of knowledge is something that could change and improve for future E-Board. I believe transparency and open communication would be beneficial for people interested in being a part of staff/executive board.
 
From the beginning, VSA made a big impact on my time in college. I was inspired by the previous E-Board and the sense of community they created for me; it pushed me to want to influence upcoming members in the same way. This led me to apply for Operations Committee. As Operations Committee, I helped planned AUVSA’s Formal, Auburn by Night. I assisted in the planning and execution of our General Body Meetings. With this knowledge, it motivated me to run for Operations Director. My time on AUVSA E-board as Operations Director has allowed me to improve my ability to not only work with a team, but also lead a committee. My love for VSA pushed me to get even more involved, which led to my journey with UVSASE. What started my involvement within UVSASE was the Gala Committee. Even though Gala unfortunately fell through, I still had the opportunity to gain experience working with something bigger than Auburn. Because Gala couldn’t happen, I wanted to make up for it which steered me to apply for FPC Associate. Being a part of FPC showed me how to organize and oversee a big event with almost 150 people. I learned how to work under pressure and adapt to time-sensitive situations. FPC really honed my teamwork and leadership experience. I had to step out of my comfort zone, and learn how to manage difficult situations.
 

Interview Questions & Responses

I think my weakness is definitely overloading myself and putting too much on my plate. So it’s kind of difficult for me to ask for help when I need it. Especially just just because of pride in thinking that I can handle it and setting unreal expectations of myself. So I think this will kind of affect myself in Eboard or just in my position in general, just because it’s important to keep open communication within Eboard or within directors or whatever. And to kind of be honest with myself and be honest with my members about what I can actually take on, because there’s a lot of things that can interfere with what I thought in the beginning I could handle…and I think in the long run, it can be kind of hard. It can kind of implode in the future. But I think as long as I’m keeping open communication and being kind of aware of what is put in front of me, I think that will resolve in something that I’m working on.

I guess a situation where my work was criticized is…so in the past I’ve worked with Night in Saigon at UGA VSA. And after we get a lot of likes, we put out a survey and then we read about what were our problems and stuff. And I didn’t, I don’t think I handled it like badly. I think it is what it is. And we tried our best. And we put the work that we thought was the best for us and the work that we could do for that show. And we put our like blood, sweat and tears into it. And I think it was amazing show and I think it matters what our members think. But it also matters what other people think too. So I read it in the criticisms. They can be very helpful and to kind of putting in note for what to do better for next year, and what to do better for the next ED or next director, and it’s something that can be very helpful towards us. So I don’t think criticism is bad in general. So how do I prefer to give feedback and criticism? I think with feedback, I think it’s helpful to just kind of not attacking the person but kind of giving ways they can do better. I think it’s better just to show like, giving them just actions instead of just saying, Oh, this is bad, but this is how you can improve on. So…I think with criticism is just more of action based answers, instead of just descriptive answers into what they should do.

So the current pillars for the Southeast are unity, leadership, culture and development & advancement and I think our strongest pillar is definitely leadership. Because I think out of the years I’ve been on SE and stuff, we’ve grown a lot of leaders. And we’ve definitely developed a lot of potential out of like new members and even old members just kind of developing them into the great leaders that they are today. And they’ve gone out and done like other opportunities with UNAVSA or within their own schools. And like SELC and Element have grown exponentially, and just the leaders, the training and workshops, and all the opportunities that we have as a region kind of gives people a lot of opportunity to kind of discover their leadership styles and to further improve themselves. So I think leadership would be our strongest pillar. And as for our weakest pillar, it would definitely be culture for me because I think as a region, it can be difficult for us to kind of pull in our cultural aspect just because we have so many different types of people in the Southeast, like it’s not just being nice people. So it’s kind of hard for us to kind of cater towards everyone. And I think the only cultural aspect we really have is our cultural show at Element. So I think we could definitely improve on that by doing like other small activities, whether it be kind of like in SELC, just like a Vietnamese activity, or even like small articles or videos on our website or on Facebook or something. We could do small activities like Vietnamese recipes or Vietnamese history or something like we could have done something for AAPI month this month, but I don’t think we really did. So just kind of raising awareness about Vietnamese culture is something that we can do because I think social media is such a powerful tool nowadays. And it doesn’t always have to be in programming in our events. So I think we could definitely use social media to advantage to increase our cultural aspect pillars.

That is definitely something I’ve been thinking about. I put it in my application as well. But I think, especially with our current state, I think it’s important to kind of host a lot of online events to keep everyone engaged because even though these physical conferences and physical camps definitely help bond people, I think, with this opportunity to use our online platform and like it’s the only thing we can use now would be kind of an advantage towards us because it’s more accessible to all of our region since we are such large region and not many people can travel or have the means to come to these conferences or camps or Olympics. I think we could use it towards our advantage to put on a lot of programming. It doesn’t have to be like a full conference or full like virtual experience to replace Element but it can be like small, like discussions or small workshops about works like resume like a lot of professional things we could add to it like resume building. We could do a lot of resume building on over zoom or how to write cover letters or anything professionally but then it can also lead into kind of whatever we would like to do so like team building, I think the game night that the last Eboard did was really great. It had an okay turnout. So I think just continually like reaching out to and giving our constituents opportunities to kind of grow with us in using our platform for bettering our region and putting things out and hoping that people will be interested is the best thing that we can do right now. And yeah. All right.

So if a director isn’t fulfilling their duties, I think it’s best to have a separate one-on-one with them at first, just to see what’s going on. There might be some personal problems or they might be struggling to come up with new ideas or handling their team. So I think one-on-ones is definitely the best thing to kind of start out on and just kind of laying out the details of what’s happening. And as time goes on, if they’re continually not doing or negatively impacting whatever they were in charge of, I think it’s best for them to give them an option of either improving themselves or kind of stepping down I think. And for us, one of the board members to take over, because if it’s having a negative impact, it’s not helping anyone. So what would be the point of them kind of just staying on and continuingly set whatever they were doing on a decline. So it’s definitely just talking and trying to resolve certain problems face-to-face, or I mean, one-on-one. And I think it’s important to not only talk to the director but also talk to the committee and seeing what their thoughts on it and just being open and honest with all of our directors and being honest with all of our staff, about whatever the situation may be. And if it was my fellow Eboard member, definitely, just kind of talking one-on-one and if it’s something that we can resolve, and if their problems continue, like, I think it would be kind of the same situation. If they were to continue with this negative impact to the overall organization, would it negatively impact the person who can’t really fulfill their duties? And will it negatively impact each other as Eboard members? So I think it’s really just analyzing the future of our organization and analyzing the person. So I don’t want them to like, be kind of resentful towards us if they can’t fulfill their duties. So I think it would just be better for them to kind of just resign if that’s what they like really, really, really needed to do.

So if two members developed personal issues on Eboard, I think a lot of it stems from passive aggressiveness. So I think the best thing to do is to keep everything open and honest, kind of let it all out. And just kind of seeing what we can do to resolve this because as…I think the longer you let a personal issue, kind of stay there and like steam, it just gets worse. So just kind of biting or cutting the problem from the beginning. I think once like a little little bit of inkling comes that there might be a problem, I think it’s best best to just hit the problem head-on. And if it’s seeping into the workspace, you know, it’s just gonna get worse if we don’t resolve it at that moment. So I think we should just kind of as an Eboard, just resolve or help each other, resolve this personal issue. And if it’s not resolvable for us kind of bringing in someone else to help resolve the issue. And if they’re working on a project, and there’s a hard deadline for them to complete and there isn’t progress, I think it’s definitely our jobs as other fellow Eboard members to kind of step in and help them out because you know, it’s just not just those two people who this kind of project relies on, it’s all of us. So I think the rest of the Eboard should definitely just kind of at that point, even if it’s not our responsibility, it’s not our laid out job, I think we should still just kind of jump in and help them at that moment and just kind of being collaborative and being an open space for all of us to work with things with each other, even though it might not be our certain responsibility.

If a member approaches me saying there is an involvement with sexual harassment by another member at a Southest event, I think at that point, it’s important that they were they felt comfortable enough to come to me and talk about it. And I think that’s something that they should be proud of is to be openly honest with me and I think I would just kind of talk it out with them and see how they’re feeling. And just how they feel at that moment, what can I do to make them feel safe? What can I do to make them feel better, or just to deal with, like, the mental headspace that they’re in, because I know that it’s hard for someone to fully admit these things to someone, especially if it’s like an Eboard member. So at that point I would discuss with that member who’s been sexually harassed, about what actions they would like me to take and what they feel comfortable with doing. And this is something that I would ask for them if they would feel comfortable for me to talk to other people about and if they don’t, then I would just deal with it one-on-one them, just because I just want to make that person feel as comfortable as possible, and making sure that they feel safe at future events or feel safe at that moment, just kind of dealing with the situation. Because this is like a very serious situation where we would have to just see, I think everything is kind of dependent on the person who has been sexually harassed and dealing with the person who harassed the other person. I think that’s something that is really up to the person. So it’s kind of hard for me to fully say exactly what I would do because everything is kind of sensitive to the person. So I know HOS does a great job about explaining about what we should do about sexual harassment. So it’s really just following whatever guidelines that have already been set out and discussing with the person.