Carolyn Zamora, co-president of LPAC, is determined to expand the club this year in more than one way. By both increasing its membership and introducing fresh events to the UNK campus, she aims to foster growth in the organization.
Alongside her co-president, Maisy Wade, Zamora has already started accomplishing that goal.
“In this role, predicting what students will be interested in can be difficult,” Zamora said. “But we just decided to take that risk and switch it up with new events..”
The new events coming to campus this semester include an outdoor roller skating night, a magic act that was featured on America’s Got Talent and an interactive musician called “Human Spotify”, who can play any song upon request.
“LPAC is trying to think outside the box to some different programming,” said Renae Zimmer, primary adviser for LPAC. “It’s such a benefit that Carolyn and Maisy work really well together and can plan these programs efficiently.”
Zamora, a senior from Lexington majoring in business administration, has been involved in LPAC for four years.
“My freshman year, I learned about LPAC through the Blue Gold Showcase and thought, ‘Wow, this is a really good opportunity to get involved on campus,’” Zamora said. “I went to the first few meetings and everybody was super welcoming. I decided that I wanted to stick around, and I’ve been here ever since.”
Over the years, Zamora has held chair positions leading to her role as co-president. However, building the self-assurance that she could handle this position took some time.
“After my freshman year, I just wanted to be as involved in LPAC as possible because it was so much fun,” Zamora said “Slowly, as I became more involved every year and grew in my leadership skills, I became more confident. I realized that I could definitely apply and strive to be the president.”
This is the first year that LPAC has implemented the co-president model. It aims to free up time and bandwidth on the president and have the two presidents work together seamlessly.
“[Carolyn and Maisy] both ran for the election and they both wanted the role as president,” Zimmer said. “It just made sense to structure our executive board this way and it’s worked really great.”
Having two styles of leadership and personalities is beneficial for the club. Where one president lacks skills, the other can step in and fill the gaps.
“My strengths are with organization and making sure everything is planned out,” Zamora said. “My co-president’s strength is communication. She’s very good at speaking at meetings, informing people on what’s going on and making announcements.”
This model also helps with outreach and retention. In theory, the co-presidents have connections to double the amount of people on campus as just one person would have.
“I feel like they’re able to connect to a lot of different people because they have their own groups on campus that they are able to incorporate into LPAC,” said Danielle Fortik, Loper events chair.
Increasing the club’s membership was one of Zamora’s goals when stepping into the position. Partly attributed to having two presidents, one LPAC member said there were several other tactics for increased members this year.
“We did a better job of advertising LPAC to the current freshmen and recruiting new members,” said Alora Ferguson, Loper programming co-chair. “I just love coming into meetings this year and then seeing the room completely packed.”
Zamora is looking forward to her last year at UNK being dedicated to giving back to the students.
“I’m very proud of our efforts in creating fun opportunities for students on campus,” Zamora said. “College can be very overwhelming, so giving students something that they can look forward to and while taking a break from studying feels good.”
