Student Body Vice President Abrianna Reaves has been fascinated with joining Student Government since she arrived at USC.
Last year, Reeves, a second-year marketing and finance student, became involved when serving as the committee chair for pre-professional fraternities in Student Government but decided that she wanted to make a bigger impact on the school by running for vice president.
"While other roles in Student Government can be more diplomatic and legislatively focused, I felt like the VP role suited me because it was communications and programming focused," Reaves said. "And with being a marketing major and kind of having those experiences in communications, that lead me there.”
In addition to Student Government, Reaves is also the director of social media for Alpha Gamma Delta sorority, a member of the Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity and a member of the Gamecock consulting club.
Throughout her involvement in these organizations, Reaves has developed relationships with many people across campus. One of her closest friends, Elizabeth Cole, a second-year exercise science student, was the deputy secretary of greek relations this past year, where Reaves served on her committee as the representative for professional fraternities.
Cole said she has seen Reaves put a lot of passion into everything she has done in Student Government the past year.
"She really has her wings spread across everything, so I really think she'll truly represent the entire student body, as well as do it passionately and do it wholeheartedly," Cole said.
With all of these responsibilities, Reaves said she has had to figure out ways to manage stress. In doing so, she makes sure to find the moments to still be active and spend time with friends outside of the organizations that she is a part of.
“I’ve just had to learn prioritizing what I actually need to get done," Reaves said. "Really just scheduling out everything, honestly, to make sure I’m managing my time well. Also even if I have to schedule out a time to go work out or go eat dinner, just making sure that I'm not letting basic health needs fall on the back burner.”
One of Reaves's internal goals for Student Government is to bring back a "good culture" to the group. She said that since everyone is there to serve the students, they shouldn’t let any differences get in the way of that.
“There hasn’t always been such a welcoming culture, and we're all in the organization, or at least hopefully, to serve. It is a service organization, and I think making sure that we're all on the same page there that we are here to serve the students," Reaves said.
As for external goals, Reaves said she wants to work on game day safety, improving parking for students and becoming more communicative and transparent with the student body during her time in office. She said that as a leader of the student body, she should be hearing from different parts of the campus — not just within Student Government.
"I think growing a social media page is huge because people in Student Government follow the social media, but they already know these things. I think we need to grow more engagement with the student body," Reaves said. "We could also do basic things like flyers and going to organization visits, things that could affect a lot of students."
According to one of Reaves' sorority sisters Maddie Moore, Abrianna possesses the qualities that will make her transparent with the student body.
“She’s very loyal, but also wants the best for you in a friendship, and goes the same for the student body, so I think she’s really capable of being transparent and trying not to hide anything," More said. "And she knows that she’s not perfect, she knows that everyone's not perfect, so she wants to show that she’s just like all the other students in that.”
Since being an active member of Student Government, Reaves said she has grown as a person by making connections and learning lessons that will continue to help her during her time in office.
“There could be times where there's internal Student Gov. conflict and just navigating with that in a respectful way and making sure that everyone's communicating, but on the same page,” Reaves said. “Not everyone is always going to see the same way or see what the purpose of the organization is but continuously establishing that bottom line of what we are all here is something that I think could be very useful going forward."