GPI: Luke Yubeta, Student Trustee

Courtesy of Luka Yubeta

By Dylan Pichnarcik

What inspired you to join SGA?

I think the biggest thing for me was just wanting to be a part of something bigger than myself. I guess I have that a little bit with hockey, but I feel like that only represents a small fraction of the school, and I felt like I could be part of something that represented everybody as a whole.

What do you hope to accomplish while serving as a Student Trustee?

I just want to represent the student population the way I think we should be. I think that I want to give a voice to everybody who deserves to have their voice [heard] and doesn't feel represented the way they should. I just really want to be a mouthpiece for the student body. I don't feel like my role is to advance myself from a personal perspective. I feel like my role is almost to serve as a public servant. We're still working on a couple things right now. The big thing that I said at the Board of Trustees’ meeting was the Administrators Forum. We are currently still working out the date for that because there was a [scheduling] conflict. So we had to reschedule from our original date, but it's probably going to be sometime around mid-October.

What do you most enjoy about FSU?

I've enjoyed the opportunities I've had here. I feel like I've had the opportunity to put myself into the community and have opportunities that I wouldn't have, especially at a bigger institution.  … I feel like I'm able to connect with so many different important layers of our student population and just campus life as a whole that I could not get at a bigger institution.

What issues concerning students do you hope to bring to the Board of Trustees?

I think in our Meet the Candidates night, a lot of people felt that they aren't represented. And I think my goal moving forward is just to listen to the concerns that students and staff have and bring those forth, because there's a lot of things that I think that maybe, personally, I'm not 100% fully aware of and equipped to speak on. But I think if I listen to other people and hear their perspective, that it may give me an opportunity to understand them a little bit better and, hopefully, bring a voice for them, too.

What inspires you about your peers on SGA?

Everyone is committed and bought into serving this community. Like I said, I think the big thing is that, like myself, nobody's in it for themselves. Everybody’s there to really make this campus a better place and to represent our student population, and I think we've got a really good group, especially with the Executive Board, to make that happen.