Getting to know Conor Dugan

Getting to know Conor Dugan

            The voice of 26,000 casually walks into the student's apartment on a late Sunday evening. He's offered a beer and without hesitation he says "Yeah sure! Any beer is a good beer."

            

      Holding the frosty Pabst Blue Ribbon, he plops down into an old and faded, green patterned recliner only fit for a college apartment full of unmatched and past prime decorations. His untucked, plaid buttoned shirt, blue jeans and sneakers gives no insight into this guy's role on campus.

            

     Dark red hair with a little bit of stubble colored on his face completes his portrait of an everyday student. It is a good thing he can play the part of chameleon because Conor Dugan, Student Body President of UNC Charlotte, has the extraordinary task of representing every group found on campus.

            

     Matching him with any particular group at UNC Charlotte would be impossible. He has the ambiguous look of belonging everywhere and the confidence of making a friend out of anyone.

            

     If the descriptions and accolades from those who know him best hold true, it is a sheer stroke of luck that students have the option to call the New Jersey native 'Mr. President' (though he would prefer you didn't). Spencer Boone, the Secretary for Student Affairs, remarked that "he's (Dugan) very humble." Jonathan Mathews, Dugan's roommate and one of his best friends through college, said "he's a dude you can sit down and have a real, man-to-man, heart-to-heart with."

            

     Dugan's first goal was to attend NYU for photography but when his family moved  to Wilmington, N.C. from N.J. when he was 15, the out-of-state tuition for the prestigious school sky-rocketed.

            

     So he looked in state.

            

      He was still drawn to the big city atmosphere and the only other university he applied to in high school was UNC Charlotte.

            

     As a freshman, Dugan arrived on campus with plans of majoring in business. Those plans have now shifted to a double major in International Studies and Latin American Studies with a minor in Spanish.

            

     Dugan recalls walking to class one day as a freshman and thinking, "'What would success look like to me in a perfect world?' And I remember thinking, what would it take to become student body president of the school? It felt so above me, like a pipe dream."

            

     The first programs he chose to become involved with during his first year on campus was Emerging Leaders and Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity.

            

     "It was one of the first times where everything wasn't just laid out in front of you," he said.

            

     Dugan would later become inactive from Alpha Sigma Phi because of his excessive time commitments to various student organizations.

            

     In his sophomore year he became involved with the Student Government Association (SGA) by being elected to a seat in the Student Senate.

            

     When a fraternity brother informed Dugan he was stepping down from the Ways and Means committee, which oversees student activity fees, he saw this as an opportunity to run for a leadership position on campus.

            

     "Opportunities will present themselves that I could make a step in one direction or the other with something I'm working on," he says.

            

     A study abroad trip that summer that ended up falling through left him without the time to rerun for Student Senate his junior year but he still served on the Ways and Means committee. Midway through the year, the chair of his committee stepped down, so Dugan answered the call. He was elected the leader and took the reins for the remainder of the year.

            

     It was during his time, as the Ways and Means Committee Chairperson, that various leaders on campus began nudging him in the direction of running for Student Body President his senior year.

            

     Dugan made the decision to run for office in fall of 2011 but kept his ambition low key until the mandatory announcement date in March of 2012. In the meantime, he started organizing his campaign.

            

     He hired Andrew Kenny as his campaign manager and together, they spent "all day every day trying to improve" his chances of winning the spring election.

            

     Dugan selected Loren Fouts for his running mate. He was able to work with Fouts during their time as Student Senators  and knew she had a terrific "track record" as far as work ethic and involvement in different programs on campus.

            

     With his announcement for the candidacy in March and his strategy in place, Dugan set out to make his name a common sound around the campus. His opposition was Stephen Belle Isle.

            

     "I got to speak at a lot of organization's meetings," Dugan said. "I figured out their times and scheduled a calendar for the three weeks (campaign period) where I would pretty much every day go and speak to two or three organizations."

            

     This differed from Belle Isle's approach of speaking one-on-one with different members of campus.

            

     After the votes were counted, Dugan was declared the winner of the Student Body President for 2012-2013.

            

     He immediately went to work and met with the former Student Body President, David Craven, to get a tutorial on how to effectively do his new job. He introduced himself to the faculty and administration.

            

     "One of the first things he said in the first meeting is, "We have a year but it's not as long as it sounds," noted Boone on Dugan's jumpstart to his term.

            

     Over this past summer Dugan took a month hiatus from his position to study abroad with his girlfriend of two years, Jordan Hoogenhout. They traveled to Lima, Peru where they immersed themselves in the culture; Dugan took two classes spoken entirely in Spanish.

            

     Dugan went right back to work when he returned. He began finalizing his cabinet for this year and singling out four or five main issues he hopes will have an impact during his time in office.

            

     Some of these include increasing the feel of campus community in lieu of football in the fall of 2013 and releasing the anticipated 49er mobile app, which will allow users to see bus routes, cafeteria menus and event schedules on campus.

            

     Jeff Caruso, a junior at UNC Charlotte and an avid 49ers athletics fan, has high hopes for Dugan's impact on campus.

            

     "I've been to a few games, traveled to a few road games and it's been good to see everyone get behind [UNC Charlotte] this year. I think the biggest thing [for Dugan] to do is to get behind the students. It can be really huge for next year," said Caruso.

            

     He realizes his power to effect change at UNC Charlotte during his term and vocalizes with the students "taking all things into consideration and apply that to where we're going," said Dugan.

            

     "There is no point in achieving success if I'm going to do a bad job at it, you know?"

            

     Through his busy schedule and countless meetings, he wants to remain the student on campus that can fit in anywhere. The desire to befriend anyone and relate to people's grievances about school is what makes Dugan "right for the job" as Boone boasted.

            

     His ability to connect with all walks of campus life is the exact persona one would imagine as a representative of the student voice.

            

     With all of his involvement, those who come into contact with Dugan can't help but catch his desire to help make UNC Charlotte a better community.

           

     "Him being busy makes me stay busy," admitted Mathews.

            

     Dugan's legacy as Student Body President has yet to be defined. If he succeeds at the tasks he has set for himself while in office as much as he succeeded at the tasks that landed him in office then he will have "accomplished what (he) came here for. You come to school to become the person you are the rest of your life."