Meet the SBP Candidate: Colin Phillips
|| Photo courtesy of Colin Phillips
Colin Phillips, PPE major and SBP candidate, has always had a passion for leadership. Growing up in homeschooling, parents of his friends recognized his ability to lead and negotiate, making him the ideal image of a diplomat, Phillips explained. These qualities benefited Phillips as he came into his own as the Helmsman for Churchill during the 2018-2019 school year.
After a year of staying on the sidelines in regards to student house leadership, Phillips decided to run for SBP. Getting back into student leadership seemed distant to him after his loss of Churchill President last spring; he didn’t know whether or not he was right for the role. After being approached by a freshman that recognized his loyalty and responsibility, he decided that it was time to continue his passion for student leadership.
“I ran because I thought I was the candidate that probably has the most connections throughout King’s,” Phillips said. “I’m connected to the most groups.”
Phillips’s platform heavily emphasizes one aspect of the student body at King’s—its identity. Phillips believes that King’s is currently divided without a sense of unity and identity.
“You have to have the groundwork of identity before anything else can function and stay sustainable,” Phillips said.
Phillips believes that the ideal identity will be formed by a unification of community, service and change. By fixing the crisis in community, Phillips says, the crisis in identity will be mended as well.
He hopes to achieve these goals by improving the existing channels of communication from the student body to the SBP.
He also wants to work closely with Student Life to add more campus-wide events to further unification of the college’s student body. Phillips plans to issue a referendum on the Fall Retreat decision to include the voices of the student body more in the decision.
Phillips would like to see King’s rally around three main values: hard work, personal excellence and character, and respecting one another.
Service is an integral part of Phillips’s platform. He plans to make service opportunities more accessible to the student body by creating an index that directs students straight to authorities within each organization.
Phillips notes that he has experience rooted in his time as Churchill Helmsman. He believes that the most important part of being SBP is staying connected to the individual and binding the student body together by being approachable and likable.
“While I don’t have the raw administrative exposure that Maddie has just had while being on the Cabinet, I have had it in the past with Churchill,” Phillips said. “Being outside of the House now has given me a perspective of what students want that you don’t get when you’re in Statesmanship.”
Phillips looks forward to working alongside the administration to attempt to represent the student body as much as he can.
“I love being involved in the vision of the college,” Phillips said. “Especially the increased roles the SBP now has in relation to President Gibson and the administration, there’s a lot more room to have a conversation about who we are, what we’re doing, and what we’ll do in the process.”
Phillips takes much of the inspiration for his campaign from Koby Jackson, current SBP.
“I respect Koby so much as a person,” Phillips said. “Koby pictures this unity to me. I would want to keep his focus on the Cabinet.”
Phillips prioritizes listening and respecting those around him, though he acknowledged that his passion for leadership can make him seem “overbearing.” He plans to work heavily with his Cabinet with respect for all of their ideas and to make them align with the mission of the college.
Phillips has plans to serve in the Marine Corps as an officer post-graduation, something he believes will be benefited if he receives the role of SBP.
“My greatest strength is that I can, on the fly, have a very good sense of what needs to be done in any given direction,” Phillips said.