By Sophia Harris Editor-in-Chief Evelyn Campbell has made a name for herself as Framingham State’s first pick when choosing a student leader. Even though FSU wasn’t her first choice. “I always say I didn't choose FSU. FSU chose me because I wasn't supposed to attend Framingham State to even begin with,” Campbell said. However, now in her senior year, Campbell is the Student Government Association president and a national honors student who has served on many University boards and received countless awards for her academic and community achievements. She majors in communication, media, and performance and will graduate with minors in English, marketing, and strategic communications. This wasn't expected, either. Originally, Campbell said when she was first accepted to FSU, “I thought I was just going to go to class and go home and that was going to be my story here.” Campbell graduated high school during the COVID-19 pandemic and did not know where or if she wanted to attend college. She ended up taking a gap year like many students because she would not be able to receive “the full college experience” while living at home with her mom and sister and taking online courses. As a first-generation college student, Campbell said she wasn't sure what awaited her in college, but knew she was ready for it after her gap year was over. “I grew up with a single mom, so college was always something that I wanted to do. I wanted to get a degree. I knew how hard my mom worked, and I wanted life to be better for myself and for my family,” she said. “My mom got pregnant at 19 and had me at 20, and it's really weird because I look back and I'm like, ‘Oh my God, I'm like, older than when you had me,’ and I can't even imagine how hard that was,” Campbell said.
She added, “As a single mom, she has shown me nothing but strength, determination, kindness, and grace. Watching her navigate the challenges of raising a family on her own has taught me the true meaning of resilience. Despite the obstacles she faced, she never strayed from her commitment to providing a loving, safe, and stable home for my sibling and I. Her ability to maintain a positive outlook, even during the toughest times, has instilled in me a sense of commitment that I carry with me every day.”
When choosing a university, a couple of obvious choices came to mind, including Bryant University, but this came with a lifetime of student loan payments.
Campbell said FSU did not come to her mind until one of her friends from high school mentioned that she loved attending the University.
“One of my friends went here, and I was just like, ‘Hey, how is it? Can you tell me about it?’” she said.
After realizing the University was much more affordable than institutions in Boston, she originally thought she was going to “go here for a year and then transfer out.
“But FSU does this cool job of just keeping you at school and involved!” she said.
In her first-year seminar class, Campbell proved to be an outstanding student, which caught the attention of Rams Peer Leader Bailey Collins, who recommended her to be an orientation leader.
As it turns out, this would be the push that Campbell needed to become a renowned leader at the University.
“I applied for that position and got to be an orientation leader going into my sophomore year. I made a bunch of friends through that and became friends with the president of Student Government at that time, and she recommended me to join as the outreach and events coordinator,” Campbell said.
“I just kind of took it and ran, basically, and then got here somehow,” she said with a laugh.
But if you know Campbell, you know that it didn't just happen “somehow.”
Campbell rose from outreach and events coordinator to president in her junior year.
She added that once she became involved with orientation and SGA, “Everyone kind of notices, and then also is like, ‘Oh, I think you would be good for this position.’”
This is how she became an academic strategy peer tutor (ASPT) in the Center for Academic Success and Achievement by the end of her sophomore year.
Currently, she serves as the lead ASPT tutor at the center.
She said her weeks are filled with SGA meetings, “endless emails,” committee meetings, an internship with the WooSox, work at her two jobs, and of course, classes and coursework.
“I feel like I do a lot of work behind the scenes. My emails never stop. If there's a big issue on campus, I try to find out immediately so I know how to address said issue,” Campbell said.
If a student comes to her with a concern about the University or if an issue arises in a senate meeting, she said, “I try my best to kind of close the loop and get more information from the higher exec staff if they do have information available for us.”
Campbell said she and the student trustee represent FSU on a statewide level, which also comes not only with a lot of responsibility, but monthly meetings as well.
“So a lot of meetings and a lot of emails but we are also trying to expand SGA in general, so it's a lot of just being visible and staying on top of it,” she said. This hard work has paid off for Campbell, as during her presidency, SGA has made some significant progress improving the well-being of the University. “Before I stepped into my role as president my junior year, I realized what went well in past presidencies and what didn't,” she said. When she started her presidency, she realized that there wasn't really a set of guidelines for what the president’s roles and responsibilities should be. She said one of her first goals as president was “to make the organization more collaborative. I wanted our administration to hear us and to know that students are concerned.” She said because administrators have listened to the concerns SGA members have raised on students’ behalf, the organization has been able to achieve many initiatives. Some of the goals SGA has accomplished recently are to increase the amount of equipment in the gym, which happened last summer, and installing a handicap-accessible ramp near CASA, which was put in so students wouldn't have to go all the way around the buildings to enter CASA. SGA also funded baby-changing tables on campus in McCarthy and Dwight halls, successfully advocated for an additional shuttle stop for the Salem End Parking Lot, helped lower parking fees for resident and commuter students, and campaigned for transportation to both men’s and women’s hockey games. Campbell said the organization also worked with the Framingham State marketing department to increase visibility on the MyFramingham website for current students. “A lot of this is not just me completing it - it's my team completing it. And I think I've really tried to hone in on the fact that, ‘We're all in this together,’ like in ‘High School Musical,’” she said. Campbell said something that has been very important to her during her presidency has been improving and maintaining relationships between SGA and administrators. She said, “There is definitely always room for improvement, especially in student government. Specifically, we are responsible for voicing student concerns in a progressive manner. “A lot of my time in SGA has been kind of stepping into more of a collaborative effort versus an opposing effort, which is where I found a lot of my success and is the reason why we've been able to accomplish so much. We're kind of looking at a lot of the issues on campus as more of a partnership versus blaming or competition,” she said. When asked who inspired her at FSU to be the leader she is today, she said, “A lot of the people who surround me are women, and I think I needed the women's support to guide me serving in powerful positions.” She said at FSU, Dean of Students Meg Nowak-Borrego, Assistant Director of Orientation and Student Experience Meghan Larkin, Assistant Dean of Students Rachel Spezia, Dean of Student Success and Persistence at CASA LaDonna Bridges, and President Nancy Niemi are some of those women. Bridges said Campbell is “intelligent, she thinks deeply about things, she is solution-oriented, and she is action-oriented.” She added, “I think Evelyn is just driven to do better, and she's just driven to do well, and as a first-generation college student, she is the person in her family setting the tone for younger siblings. She's making people proud in what she's doing.” Campbell said that her mother is also one of the biggest inspirations in her life. “From a very early age, she has always tried to encourage confidence and leadership skills in me. Whether it was motivating me to take the lead in school projects or supporting me in extracurricular activities, she believed in my potential and pushed me to exceed my own expectations,” she said.
Campbell said her mother’s unwavering belief in her abilities has given her the courage to take risks and embrace new opportunities. She said her mother has always taught her that leadership is not just about taking charge, but also about listening, empathizing, and making thoughtful decisions.
“My mom is not just a parent but a role model, teacher, and best friend. I constantly strive to embody all of her amazing qualities. Her resilience, compassion, dedication, and selflessness have shaped who I am today and continue to inspire me to strive for excellence in all aspects of my life,” Campbell said. “I am incredibly grateful for her support and the invaluable lessons she has taught me. I live every day of my life trying to show her that my success and fulfillment come directly from her.”
During her last year as president of SGA, one goal Campbell would like to accomplish is helping the University to bridge the gap between going to classes and being an involved student. “I feel like a lot of students who just go to classes don't get the college experience that I have gotten, and it makes me upset because I know that I've gotten a lot from the roles that I've had on campus, and I know I'm one thousand times more prepared to get a job out of college than if I were just to go to class and go home,” Campbell said. She said she has been working a lot with the faculty and the deans of the different colleges to help advocate for and spread awareness of what student government does and how students can be involved. “We've done a lot of recruiting through professors and chairs of different departments to hopefully encourage our students to be a voice on campus and be seen and heard. Because our school is so small, students do have the opportunity to see how much change that causes,” she said. Campbell added she would like to leave SGA with more members than it had when she started and give students the tools to maintain the relationships she has established with administrators. Campbell said as a corporate partnership intern for the Worcester WooSox, she is using all of the skills she acquired through her leadership roles at FSU. “Even in my interview process, I felt really prepared for what I was going to be doing there. A lot of the job is meeting with the corporate partners - the people who pay the WooSox to be an advertisement partner,” she said. She said a lot of the work that she has been doing through SGA, such as meeting with the higher-level executives and the stakeholders of the University, has translated really well into the internship. “I've learned a lot of organizational skills and a lot of leadership skills in terms of being able to transition my leadership into learning,” she said. Campbell said she is always surprised to hear other students say they see her as an inspiration. “I feel like I never really look at myself as an inspiration, as much as that's like, not good to say because I know I do inspire students to get involved, but for me - I don't feel like I often have the time and space to reflect on that.” Vice President of SGA César Matos has worked with Campbell for two years in both the capacity of orientation leader and on SGA. Matos said it has been interesting observing Campbell in these leadership roles because she approaches them very differently and is able to adapt to each position very well. “Evelyn has a very inviting personality in her role as orientation leader and in her role as president. I think she's a lot more structured in the way that she approaches things that she has to do for the campus community, but I think she brings the same level of energy to both jobs,” Matos said. Student Trustee Jeremy McDonald said he joined SGA as a senator and held that position for one year before advancing to student trustee, and he has enjoyed working with Campbell in both capacities. McDonald said he has worked with Campbell closely over the past two years on many initiatives to better the University. The most recent was establishing transportation to the men's and women's ice hockey games. He said he and Campbell partnered with the Dean of Students Office and the Student Transportation Center to make this happen. “Evelyn helped me to establish those relationships and eventually get that partnership off the ground and get some transportation to off-campus events. Right now, it's hockey, and we're hoping to expand into football next year and that it continues to expand after we graduate,” he said. He said Campbell is “a natural-born leader.” He added, “She brings out the best in everybody around her and she leads by example. So she kind of brings everybody along with her by showing the right way for things to be done. “It impacts everybody for the better because it forces everybody to continue to hold up their own.” McDonald said under Campbell’s leadership, SGA held safety walks, which are biannual opportunites for SGA and administrators to inspect the campus for safety and accessibility concerns. “Evelyn's very passionate about just continuing that event and her recognizing something of the needs of disabled students and turning that space [outside CASA] into a ramp shows her commitment to students from all walks of life across campus,” he said. Referring to the relationship between himself as student trustee and Campbell as SGA president, he said, “She's been a great partner and she has just really showed me the way in terms of navigating the administration, and she's built up those relationships over the years, and so for me to have her as a partner, that has definitely made my life a lot easier and made me more successful in my role.” McDonald added that from what he has experienced from working alongside Campbell, her leadership “speaks to how successful she'll be after she graduates. “She's really brought along all of us, and developed everybody who’s been in SGA into a leader themselves.” McDonald said people often turn into great leaders when they have been mentored by great leaders themselves, and he has seen that happen many times with students who join SGA. “I know that I wouldn't be the leader I am today without having seen her model it for me,” he said.