Emily McDonald seems like your average college student. Originally from Greensburg, Pennsylvania she was heavily involved in extracurricular activities throughout high school that propelled her to get involved at Penn State. McDonald may seem like the average college student but in fact, she is one of the most powerful student politicians as the student body president.
McDonald is a junior studying Economics and International Business. She also became a sister of Alpha Xi Delta during her sophomore year to make the 40,000-student school a little smaller for her. Although her main focus is leading the Penn State student body through the University Park Undergraduate Association.
Drawing on her past leadership experience from high school, McDonald knew she wanted to get involved with UPUA. On the second day of classes her freshman year, McDonald applied for the freshman representative position and was elected. She sat on the assembly to vote on behalf of her class and then transitioned into the Vice Chair of the Student Life committee when the former chair had resigned. Soon after, McDonald ran for an Off-Campus Representative seat and the committee chair of the Diversity Committee.
Because of her commitment and heavy involvement with UPUA, Anand Ganjam, a fellow UPUA representative, approached McDonald with an offer to join his campaign for presidency as his vice president. McDonald felt very strongly about his qualities and qualifications for UPUA president and decided to campaign with Ganjam. The pair won the 2014 election and McDonald spent her junior year serving the student body as vice president until she decided to continue her involvement and run for president in March 2015.
McDonald and her sophomore running mate, Terry Ford, campaigned throughout the month of March and came out strong with a victory over three other tickets with 64.3 percent of the votes. McDonald said she was surprised by the turnout because she never thought she would get over fifty percent of the votes with four tickets running in the election.
With her transition into the presidency, McDonald hopes to continue the success of UPUA and further convey student opinions to the higher levels of the university.
McDonald and Ford’s platform includes creating a mental health task force, starting social media campaign that targets cyber racial and cultural insensitivity, increasing sexual assault awareness and finding a way for students to receive meal points when they run out.
The pair is also striving to make day-to-day life for all University Park students is convenient, stress free and as easy as possible by allowing students to rent umbrellas from the HUB on rainy days and creating a plan to implement a Creamery Ice Cream Truck to drive around campus so students will not have to walk to the Berkey Creamery on Curtain Road. McDonald is striving to make University Park the safest, most convenient and top campus for all of the students she represents.
McDonald is an extremely hard worker, dedicated Penn State student and a born leader. UPUA is her outlet at Penn State to give back to the community and make campus better for current students and students to come in the future.