Ben Mulholland follows in brother's footsteps as SAC president

Junior Ben Mulholland has been a part of the Student Activities Council at Southeast Missouri State University since soon after he enrolled by becoming a member when his brother, Trevor Mulholland, was president. He is now the president of SAC and has been for the entire 2014-2015 school year.

Mulholland is majoring in hospitality management and is also the president of Tau Kappa Epsilon, a fraternity that returned this fall after a 24-year absence. He also works for the University Center at the ID desk and helps out at the Show Me Center by working various jobs.

Q: What led you to become the president of SAC?

A: I'm actually a legacy. I wouldn't say it's technically a legacy -- my brother went here before I did, and he started out in Student Activities Council as a general body member. He then became an exec member, and then when I got here was when he was president, and I became a general body member because he was in it already, and I thought that's how you get to meet people. Well, the year after, I joined exec and he's on exec, and then I said, "Well, it doesn't look like there are many people that want to run for president," and I thought that I could do the job to the best [ability] as anyone else. So I decided that I was going to run for president, so I worked my way up from general body to coordinator and then to president.

Q: What are your duties as the president for SAC?

A: My job is to work with our adviser [Joanna Shaver] and with other people at the university to make sure that our organization stays in the best hands possible, to make sure that we are staying strong and well-known through the campus. If that's through partnering up with other organizations and doing different functions, but right now I'm working with an organization to help out with Earth Day with one of their projects they wanted to do for Earth Day, as well as I work with the vice presidents to make sure that the coordinators are accomplishing the tasks so that we put on the best events possible and get the highest attendance possible.

Q: What leadership skills would you say it takes to be the president of an organization like SAC?

A: A real one is -- they say you've got to be a good leader -- you've got to have the ability to have people, when you speak, to listen. My thing is you don't have to be a good leader to be the president of SAC; you've got to be a great follower. And that doesn't mean you've got to do whatever people say. You have to understand what other people need, and your job is to help them. You're not doing stuff for yourself; you're doing stuff for them, so really, they're leading you.

It makes you look good at the same time, because you are the face of the organization, but you're helping them to become a better leader, and that's what I think it really takes. It takes a lot of being unbiased. It's knowing that, yes, I may want this event to happen for personal reasons because I may like that comedian better than the other one, but understanding that if the student body picks that person to come to the campus, you've got to have just as much excitement, if not more, for that person as you did for the one you wanted.

Q: What would you say you are most proud of when it comes to SAC?

A: This year I am most proud of what we are becoming as with retention. Usually in the springtime, our retention falls off, and we drop in our organization. Sometimes we'll deplete around this time. Spring break's coming up, and people start to get busy with midterms and our attendance goes down [at events]. Our attendance hasn't gone down [this year]. It has actually stayed the same, and we're constantly getting new bodies flown in.

So I really give a lot of credit to our vice president of membership, Charmaura Henderson, who's been working well with people by having what we call SAC Socials. We just have all of the members come in and hang out, and we will play games, and we'll give them a snack. We're also working on a big concert right now, and it has been a couple of years since we've had a big concert at SEMO that's not the usual country or old rock or Christian rock -- that's usually what the Show Me Center brings. We're bringing a pop/hip-hop band for the first time in a good decent amount of time, and I think that's taken a lot of work and a lot of extra steps. Our team has been working on it, and we've been doing a lot of work for that one.

Q: What are some of the other challenges you are faced with by being the president of SAC?

A: Personal challenges that I have is time. I am very involved with the campus, and I'm very involved outside through work and with friends and what not. I like to be the best at everything that I put myself to, so it has been a challenge to be able to put enough time into SAC without taking time away from other organizations and vice versa.

A challenge we [SAC] have now is this year, I was the only returner that did a full year last year. We had two other people who came back that started halfway through second semester last year. So I'm the only one on the exec board that had prior experience with a lot of knowledge and coordinating and all of that, so it was a challenge to get the guys up to par on contracts, and this is how you should be setting up events, and this is how many volunteers you have. The coordinators have really responded well, and they've really caught on quick. Now they're doing their own events, and it's basically where I've got to say, "Hey, how's it looking?" They'll raffle off what they need to do, and it just sounds right, and our attendance [for events] shows for it.

Q: Who has impacted you as a leader?

A: I would have to say my brother. Through this day and age, you've got your role models growing up, but from this day and age, I guess it would have to be my older brother for the fact that when I came to campus, I had a girlfriend, and a roommate, and that was it. And because I had my brother here, and because he forced me to come out of my room and join the organization, I wouldn't have had the ability to get to the position that I am at without him.

Being there to guide me along the way and to have him being my brother, sit me down when I'm doing something dumb and say, "Hey, you need to fix this or you're going to end up on the wrong path." It's really good that he was there for me, and it's weird because he still does it behind my back. He's friends with the adviser, so he'll always call her. I think he calls at least once a week, and he always checks up on me through her, so secretly, he's watching over me, and now I have my twin sister that goes here that lives with me, so I guess I get the whole family protecting me.