Ben Overby
Staff Writer
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Junior Ian Puckett sat down with the Murray State News to discuss his ambitions as Student Government Association President.

Puckett said he got involved in SGA somewhat late in his college career. His path to joining SGA included joining the summer orientation team as a freshman, and becoming a lead counselor as a sophomore, becoming interfraternity council president, and eventually becoming government relations chair in SGA. Puckett later became chief of staff and the idea of running for president entered his mind.

“I thought about it a lot, and prayed about it a lot, and talked to a lot of people,” Puckett said. “I thought, you know what? I think I’ve got great ideas. I can help out the campus and I’m going to run. I put all my chips on the table and ran unopposed. So, yeah, a very unconventional way to get in.”

Puckett said the main purpose of SGA is to advocate for the student body.

“It’s called the Student Government Association for a reason,” Puckett said. “It’s run by students and it’s for the students. In SGA we do our best to bridge the gap between the student body and the administration here on campus.”

Puckett said while the administration at Murray State is fantastic, there are so many aspects to operating a university that students’ interests can sometimes be overlooked. 

He said running a university is difficult and it involves a lot of tough decisions. He said it’s important to have a voice that advocates for students while these decisions are being made.

Puckett said there are three main issues he hopes to address as SGA President. The first is the COVID-19 pandemic.

Puckett said he is excited about the availability of vaccines at Murray State, and by the idea of returning to some form of normalcy soon. However, he said students need to be careful not to try to rush back into normalcy.

“We have to be sure we transition into normalcy, not jump into normalcy,” Puckett said. “That’s for the safety of every student on this campus. That may make me seem like a bad guy to some people. That may make me seem like I’m not fun, or I’m too cautious, but I would much rather from the start of my presidency to the end of my presidency have every student that is here under me come with me to the end of my presidency than lose some just because we decided to jump back in and be unsafe.”

Puckett said mental health is another issue that’s important to him. He said while mental health has always been a prominent issue, it’s become even more prevalent due to the isolation of the pandemic. Puckett hopes to be able to get more funding for mental health resources and revamp the Racers Empower program, as well as help destigmatize mental health by opening dialogues about it.

The third issue Puckett hopes to address is diversity and inclusion. He said while these issues have always been important to him, the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor opened his eyes even more to the significance of diversity and inclusion. Puckett said he was heartbroken not only by their deaths, but by fact that justice was not being adequately served in response to them.  

“I’ve always tried to be as conscious a person as I can be in regards to diversity and inclusion, but I really wanted to help even more so than I’d been trying to do after those events transpired,” Puckett said.

Puckett said there are many organizations at Murray State that do great work with diversity like the Black Student Council, the International Student Organization and the LGBTQ office. He said that Murray State is inevitably a predominantly white institution because of its location. He said while there’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself, he hopes to help build bridges between white students and underrepresented minority student organizations.

“I would love, during my time as SGA president, to build a bridge to various student organizations and send a strong and clear message to every university in the nation, especially to the commonwealth, that this is an institution that is inclusive,” Puckett said. “We include everyone. We are one big happy Racer family and we all work together.”