When the student body election candidates were announced, only one name appeared for vice president of academics, Kolby Spector, a junior math education major from Fordham, New York.
Because Spector is the only person running for vice president of academics, he will be filling in the position for the 2025-2026 academic school year.
The student government debate was held Feb. 27, allowing candidates to talk about their platforms and address concerns. Karsyn Collins, a junior criminal justice major from Lumberton, Texas and special operations manager for the Institute of Politics, moderated the event.
“With him being the only candidate, I didn’t want to cut his questions out completely because I still feel that it was very important that his voice was heard and that people knew who he was, and why he was running,” Collins said.
Spector transferred to Utah Tech last year from Suny Adirondack Community College. He came here on a whim, looking to find more outdoor programs. He said, “I kind of came out here to do my own thing, and I’ve loved it ever since.”
Spector is currently chief of staff for the Utah Tech Student Association. He was a candidate for vice president of academics last school year and is looking forward to holding this position for the upcoming school year. Spector’s three pillars in his campaign are advocacy, action and advancement.
Part of Spector’s campaign is advocacy plus action equals advancement. Using his platform and previous experience at UTSA, he wants to see more success and actions taken at Utah Tech, meaning he wants to see what is said on paper, take action.
Being UTSA’s chief of staff has given him the opportunity to see how the Utah State Legislature works in terms of student fees and tuition. He would like to implement some of how the state legislature works into our university student government.
Spector said: “I’ve been super interested in bringing that back [what he’s learned from the legislature] to academics and just informing students of student fees and how all of the higher up stuff works because the general student isn’t aware of how much legal stuff goes into the decisions made on our campus.”
An initiative Spector would like to see is to make UTSA Student Senate an elected position. Senate helps control the budget and communicate to the administration about student concerns. He would like to see more balanced communication between students, the student senate and the administration.
“I think just working with the provost and bringing up those concerns with them… and see what changes we can make with that,” Spector said.
One academic concern Spector has seen and heard on campus is communication with academic advisers.
He recommended having upperclassmen work with academic advisers to fill in office hours, allowing for academic advisers to have more time to meet with students.
Students can vote for student body elections using the myUT app starting March 3. Winners will be announced March 7 at 8 a.m. via social media.
