Junior Parker Butler finds fulfillment in on-campus leadership

Parker Butler is no stranger to what it means to be busy, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

Butler is a junior at Southeast Missouri State University majoring in advertising, but that's just the beginning. Outside of any obligatory schoolwork, Butler is an active senator in the Student Government Association, the Interfraternity Council president and a student worker in the Office of the President. He also was most recently a part of the Presidential Search Committee as a student representative along with Justin Robinson. He's gained experience only possible from doing the job hands-on due to his diligent involvement with campus affairs.

Can you talk about the role you play in SGA?

Being a part of student government, I am a senator for the College of Liberal Arts, so more or less, I am a representative for the college, trying to reach out to students to more or less get their perspectives on issues that come up throughout the year.

One of your newest roles is acting IFC president. What's your experience been like there? What do you do on a day-to-day basis?

On a day-to-day basis, I interact with chapter presidents, I interact with administration, I interact with the Office of Greek Life. More or less, I'm constantly trying to offer direction to the fraternity system to try to keep us on task and to keep us going in the direction we need to be going in.

You work in the Office of the President, too?

Being a student worker there is really cool. I get to work on a lot of important projects. I occasionally work in with some of the Board of Regents materials. There's a lot of administrative work, too, just taking phone calls, making copies, but I get a whole lot of joy knowing that the work that I do there is significant.

You were also just on the Presidential Search Committee. How was that experience?

We all kind of played the same role, and I thought that was what was so cool. Even though Justin [Robinson] and I, the two students that were on there, even though we were there as students, our opinion was very much still valued. We had the same access to all the candidate materials, with resumes and all of that, and that was super cool to be able to actually see all 46 candidates, all of their resumes, all their past experiences and actually having our opinions valued there on the committee along with professors and regents and other administrative staff. That was really cool.

How do all these positions call you to leadership?

The biggest thing about leadership, I think, is actively engaging the people that you lead. It's so important as leader to be able to empower and engage those individually. That's the most important thing. Because if I'm a good president, it doesn't really matter if I'm not setting up the other officers on my board to be successful.

Does each role ask a different aspect of leadership?

Absolutely. I think being IFC president, there I'm seen as the ultimate leader. I'm supposed to be the pacesetter for my other officers and for chapter presidents. But being a senator for student government, I'm more of a follower than anything, looking to the executive leadership there in student government to see what I should be doing and how I can help student government.

To you, what makes a quality leader?

A good leader should be driven. They should be goal-oriented, and they should look to engage the people that they lead, and I've already eluded to that, but I think it's really, really important to be constantly motivating your team, be engaging your team and setting your team up with everything that they need and being a source of help for them in completing their task along the way.