UNC Pembroke’s Simone Spencer was elected as the 49th session senior vice president of the UNC Association of Student Governments. 

Established in 1971, The University of North Carolina Association of Student Governments is a student-led organization committed to advocating for all 230,000+ students within the UNC System. With delegates selected from each of the seventeen UNC System campuses, UNCASG addresses issues like access and affordability, campus safety and student voter participation. 

Simone Spencer, a rising senior from Matthews, N.C., is studying psychology and is “an outstanding example of student engagement and leadership,” explained Abdul Ghaffar, director of Campus Engagement and Leadership. “She has been a fixture in the CEL office since she arrived at UNCP. This appointment is the culmination of her commitment to SGA at UNCP and statewide,” Ghaffar added.

Simone has been active in Student Government Association at UNC Pembroke for three years where she has served as senator, Student Affairs chair, Association of Student Governments liaison for UNC Pembroke and government operations chair. 

Additionally, Simone was a LEAD fellow for two years. LEAD fellows are well-trained peer leadership educators who facilitate leadership-based workshops for students, student organizations and in classroom settings. As an extension of the Office for Campus Engagement and Leadership, LEAD Fellows provide a process for peer-to-peer education based on the ideas of experimental learning and with a theoretical foundation based on the Social Change Model of Leadership. In order to promote leadership as a collaborative, purposeful, values-based, relational leadership processes, LEAD Fellows focus on programs that engage students with a variety of abilities and engagement levels with appropriately-designed opportunities to develop their leadership capacity. 

Simone has also served as a Leadership Living and Learning Community (LLC) mentor for two years, where she oversees a portion of the first-year students who apply to be part of this community on campus. The Leadership LLC is an opportunity for 40 first-year students to live and study together learning about leadership as a purposeful, collaborative, values-based and relational process.

She has also served as president of OLÉ (Organización de la Lengua Española) for part of the 2019-20 academic year. The purpose of this organization is to educate students about Hispanic culture and serves to unite students in promoting activities that are affiliated with the Hispanic culture on campus and the surrounding community. 

“Simone has always proven to be a leader of service to others. I am so very proud of the opportunity to have UNCP represented at the state-level and the continued support for students across the UNC System that Simone will continue to advocate for. I know Simone will continue to carry on the spirit of BraveNation as she moves forward into her new endeavors. Campus Engagement and Leadership, Student Government Association, students and administrators of UNCP are so proud of her and all of her hard work,” stated Kyle Levine, SGA advisor.

Campus Engagement and Leadership’s mission at UNC Pembroke is to provide meaningful co- and extra-curricular developmental and educational opportunities for students in a values-based and student-centered environment, and is a department within the Division of Student Affairs. To learn more about CEL, visit uncp.edu/CEL or follow the department on social media.