Kent State University’s branch of NAACP has elected its executive board for Fall 2011. The results of the elections were released last week.

Christopher Jones, sophomore political science major, was elected president. He ran against Ramone Foster, sophomore communication studies major, and Terrance Tufts, junior psychology major. Foster, who received the second largest number of votes, was elected vice president. Tufts’ future position is still to be determined.

Lauren Sewell, freshman biology major, became secretary; she ran unopposed. Here, Jones, Foster and Sewell speak about their goals and what they want to do as leaders in the Kent chapter of NAACP.

Lauren Sewell, freshman biology major, will repeat her role as secretary of NAACP. As secretary, Sewell takes meeting minutes, maintains a mass e-mail list and reminds other executive board members of what needs to be done.

She’s looking forward to Fall 2011, especially when it comes to event planning. She said she’d like to plan an event that hasn’t happened at Kent State before.

Sewell also spoke of the importance of the NAACP.

“If we want to do things outside of Kent, such as laws or talk to politicians, we have the national pull and people to do that.”

Ramone Foster,vice president-elect of the NAACP, is committed to helping other students, especially when it comes to keeping them at Kent State to complete their degree.

“There shouldn’t be students on campus who are having that much trouble that they have to drop out or they have to fail out of a semester,” Foster said. “We have a lot of programs on campus to help these students, and I want to highlight programs like that and make sure that people are swallowing their pride and going to these programs.”

Foster said details about how to implement the NAACP’s upcoming plans are still being worked out. However, the group’s focus is clear.

“These are the years that people are ‘Hey, I think college is not for me’ and they leave. We want to get them beforehand and say, ‘Hey, you can do this.’”

As president-elect, Christopher Jones has many goals for next semester, including informing students about resources on campus that can help students succeed academically.

Jones said he would like the chapter to serve as a support group for minority students.

“The majority of African-American students don’t know about Black United Students, don’t really know about NAACP,” he said. “They don’t know about all these different scholarships, they’re not aware. I think awareness is the most important thing.”

Jones talked about those he will be leading as president next semester.

“When you get a group of people that actually care about something and you let those minds collaborate, you don’t know what can happen.”

Contact Ryan Collins at [email protected].