Student body vice presidential candidate: ‘I’m trying to get some unity going here’
Alex Waelde has a long day.
After arriving late to an interview with The Daily Gamecock — a conference call with one of his attorneys ran long — the vice presidential candidate for Student Government explained that a typical day for him goes from 9 a.m. to about 4 a.m. the next morning.
After classes, Waelde “plunges right into business.” He co-owns two bars in Five Points — Sharky’s and Overtime — and is the founder of DrinkingTicket.
The company’s Twitter account also notifies followers where undercover police officers and DUI checkpoints are around Columbia, as well as safety alerts and bar promotions.
“With DrinkingTicket, I’m constantly in conference calls, business meetings, board meetings, investors meetings,” the fourth-year criminal justice student from Greenville said. “Even on the weekends I find myself meeting with city officials or (conducting) interviews or taking conference calls, but I’m always moving.”
As far as issues on campus, Waelde’s main concern is student safety. To help ensure that, he wants to promote “a knowledge base for, lack of a better way to put it, responsible partying.
“The way I see it is, you can’t take the partying — the fun — out of college,” Waelde said. “But I really wish there were better ways to help make sure the students are safe.”
He observed a decrease in the presence of officers within USC’s Division of Law Enforcement and Safety from his freshman year to the present.
“I couldn’t go from Point A to Point B on campus without seeing a bike cop (or) a campus safety officer,” he said. “What happened to them?”
Waelde also believes there’s a large disconnect with SG and the student body, a problem he’d try to solve in office.
“[SG] should be a burning desire for everybody to want to be in charge of it, and the student body doesn’t seem to care,” he said. “It’s something I’m honestly putting in the students’ lap: Why does nobody care?”
He has a connection to 17,000 people on Twitter by way of DrinkingTicket — “more than anyone at this university can say” — and says he sees a lot of issues faced by students on campus, many of whom are underrepresented in SG.
“Student Government does try really hard … but there’s still a lot of room for more involvement,” Waelde said. “I’m trying to get some unity going here. If I can do it on a Twitter account, why not be able to do it in person?”
As the face of DrinkingTicket and having been formerly involved with SG and Fraternity Life, Waelde sees himself as a representative of a wide variety of students.
“I’ve noticed just from being connected with the students on that party end … students see me as an ‘ally,’ and as being that ally, people don’t censor themselves with me,” Waelde said.