Junior Spencer Haydary is running for student trustee

With a campus of this size it’s easy to feel voiceless and alone. Although many of us can think of practices on campus we’d like to see changed, it seems difficult to get the attention of people who can change them. But one student continuously attempts to bring a voice to his fellow Illini.

Spencer Haydary, a junior in psychology and communications, is campaigning to become next year’s student trustee. A member on the UIUC Board of Trustees, a student trustee is tasked with representing his or her students on the administrative level.

Spencer Haydary, junior in psychology and communications

Spencer is running against Collin Schumock and Obiamaka Onwuta to proceed current trustee Jaylin McClinton.

Spencer was the student trustee at Rock Valley College in Rockford, IL before he came to UIUC this fall. Voting is open for students at vote.illinois.edu on March 9 and 10.

“I want to run for student trustee because every single student I’ve talked with, in addition to myself, is kind of sick and tired of the scandals that have rocked U of I recently,” Spencer said. “I also want to focus on addressing three main areas of safety, inclusion and progress on campus.”

Disturbed by the number of suicides at UIUC, Spencer wants to improve the mental health facilities on campus. If elected student trustee, Spencer plans to increase the recourses of the counseling center. Although he believes the administration has been receptive to mental health issues, he believes the counseling center can still update their operation abilities.

“The important to thing to realize with the counseling center is their hours are eight to five, but mental health is 24/7, and that’s an issue that I feel we really need to bring to the table,” he said. “It’s hard for people to wake up at seven, especially if you have depression, which is one of the most common issues people come to them with, that and anxiety.”

“I also want to focus on addressing three main areas of safety, inclusion and progress on campus”

As someone whose battled depression in the past, Spencer wants to make sure his fellow Illini don’t have to experience that kind of pain.

“I am open about this, but I struggled with it myself,” he said. “I went through a horrible, horrible episode of depression, about a year and half, and I was not in a good place for that year and a half. It was due to my closest friends that I was able to pull through from that, because they were the ones that were there for me.”

Furthering his plans for campus safety, Spencer is a proponent for ending sexual assault. He believes RA’s and the general student body must learn how to detect sexual assault and understand what consent really means. He also wants the Students Against Sexual Assault to have a larger voice on campus.

“I’ve been lucky never to be a victim of sexual assault but several of my close friends have,” Spencer said. “I cannot even begin to put it in words how furious I was when I found out . . . it was infuriating that there was nothing I could do. I believe in saying end sexual assault because we need to have the universal target if we’re ever going to get there. I don’t just want to say, ‘Let’s aim to get this many people less assaulted in a given year.’ I can’t look someone in the eye and say, ‘I choose you over them.’”

He believes RA’s and the general student body must learn how to detect sexual assault and understand what consent really means

Spencer also wants to combat race issues on campus. Unnerved by the White Student Union, Spencer would like to be a student trustee that brings marginalized groups to the forefront of administrative discussion.

“I was just having a conversation with a student and she was saying how they were going on a bar crawl and the bar wouldn’t let them in, even though they had paid beforehand, because it was a group of over 50 black students. That is racist, that is discrimination and it is not OK,” he said.

Spencer believes his main edge against his competitors is his experience. As the trustee at Rock Valley, he was able to ensure a $25,000 endowment for Latino students and created a laptop sharing program for all students. He believes this experience will help him “hit the ground running” with every issue students had spoken to him about.