Courtney Tkacs has lived all over the world, the product of growing up in a military family. She moved to Lexington her sophomore year of high school and found her home in South Carolina.
Today, Tkacs is working to make her University of South Carolina home a better place by serving as the student body president for the 2025-26 term.
The Honors College senior comes to the top job having served as vice president last year and has previously served as speaker of the Student Senate and on Freshman Council among other Student Government positions.
We talked with Tkacs about her path to the presidency and her ambitions for her term.
What were some of your motivations to run for student body president?
This past year, during my vice presidential role, I dealt with a lot of programming and communication for things we already have available at USC — mental health resources, safety resources. There was kind of a lack of being able to advocate within those positions, just because that's that's not what my branch did, and I completely understood that. But I kept finding these little gaps and places where we needed to improve, and I knew I would need a larger platform to advocate for those things and that's ultimately why I ran for student body president.
I wanted to continue being a servant leader and pushing for change on campus, specifically within things like mental health, safety, academics and then a few bigger projects, like a new Russell House and increasing our student activity fee. So those were a few things that I really wanted to do, and I'm already starting to really push for those in some preliminary meetings that I've had, so that's been a great experience.
What do you hope to achieve through your presidency?
My big goal is to increase the student activity fee, to be able to give our students more of an opportunity and more access to a better student experience. One thing I ran on last year and this year is we constantly talk about having the No. 1 first-year experience, but we need to make sure that we have the No. 1 four-year experience. And right now, we are very first-year experience centric, but by increasing the student activity fee, it's going to allow a lot of our upperclassmen to have a similar experience like they did their first year.
Additionally, I would like to, in my time, confirm that we will be getting a new Russell House. This has been a big project that multiple student body presidents have been pushing for. I've sat on an external review board and talked with a lot of upper level administration to kind of see what steps we could take to continue pushing for this. Also mental health days were just confirmed by the Faculty Senate to be included in an approved excused absence list. Students will need to provide documentation, but I want to keep pushing to make sure that stays around for multiple years to come. Also looking at our Center of Health and Well Being, to ensure that we're streamlining our counseling resources, because right now, it takes up to a week to get a counseling session. So I want to make sure that students are having a quality experience doing that.
We constantly talk about having the No. 1 first year experience, but we need to make sure that we have the No. 1 four year experience.
As president, how do you plan to make sure that student voices are all heard, even from underrepresented groups, and that all students feel represented within Student Government?
So the first step that I took in this was making a very diverse cabinet. I'm very excited about a lot of the people on our team. They are so qualified and do represent a lot of people on our campus.
Additionally, I'm continuing Let's Talk Carolina, which is an event that we put on where we go and speak to student organizations, tell them about what Student Government is hoping to achieve for them, and then listening to their input as well as to what they need from the rest of the university.
Over the summer, I work as a Student Life Ambassador, and I work with so many student leaders from around campus, including the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, Gamecock Entertainment, Fraternity and Sorority Life, multiple different departments, and it's a great way to build professional and social relationships with them, so that I can best learn how to serve students within their organizations as well.
But it's all about getting out in front of students and making sure that you're putting in the effort to reach out to these organizations and hear what they need and be ready to switch gears and be flexible with your advocacy and your marketing.
It's not my agenda, it's the students' agenda. That's one thing that I'm really, really emphasizing this year. My job is to be the voice for students on an administrative level, and my job is to ensure that I am listening to students and hearing student concerns from all groups on campus.
What do you want to do to bridge the gap of communication between students and administration and make sure students know that they can come to Student Government leaders and be heard?
I feel like some students are intimidated to come talk to us. That's my favorite part of the job, speaking to students. I'm going to post my office hours online when I'm in my office and do open dialog time when students can come and meet with me. That's in addition to them just emailing me and setting up a meeting, I'm so willing to meet with any student.
Former student body president Amy Thompson put her phone number up on the screen at every orientation schedule. I want to make sure that I'm giving students any resource possible for them to be able to reach out to me. My phone number is in my email signature so they automatically have my email and phone number.
Someone recently proposed an idea called SG on the Steps, which is something that I'm definitely implementing in the next year. Once a month, we'll go out onto Greene Street, and that's just the time for people to basically come and complain. Complain kind of has a negative connotation, but it's just a time for us to connect with students and hear student concerns, learn what's going well with students to see if the work that we're currently doing is working. If it's not then that's a sign for us to switch gears and find another way to go about it.
But it's all about getting out in front of students and making sure that you're putting in the effort to reach out to these organizations and hear what they need and understand that and be ready to switch gears and be flexible with your advocacy and your marketing.
What do you hope Student Government will look like in the long term?
I hope that people know that Student Government is a place for everyone. It's a place for people, not just pre-law and government students, but also people who want to speak their mind. It's for anybody and everyone who wants to share their passion and advocate for student concerns. I want to make sure that it's a place of connectivity. It's a place of efficiency where we are kind of relying on everyone for one common goal.
When we're going about these advocacy goals and these programming events, it's not a president's thing, it's not a vice president thing, it's not a speaker thing, it's not a treasurer thing, it's a Student Government thing. And I want to kind of decrease the hierarchy within Student Government so students feel like no matter what position that they hold in this organization, they are valued and the work they do matters. So that's the mark I hope to leave on the organization and I hope that it continues past my time.