Meet David Springer: AUGSA President

I sat down with David Springer (graduate, MDiv) to talk about his experience as the president of the Andrews University Graduate Student Association.

What does your job consist of as the president of AUGSA?
I guide the vision for the AUGSA executive team. I’m also responsible for inspiring the leaders, which looks like AUGSA’s executive team connecting with leaders on and off campus including administration, social club presidents, and externally, as sometimes we have to find resources off campus. Sometimes, it’s connecting with graduate students and seeing if they have some concerns or even some plans to make Andrews University a better place. Maybe some of them have concerns with their families that they may be requesting specific support with. Sometimes it's meetings—we tend to have a lot of meetings because we are on different committees for the school: Dean’s Council, Strategy and Policy Committee, Housing Board, and Alumni Board.

What is your vision for Andrews and the graduate students?
The vision is not just my vision, but it’s the vision we’ve been trying to push for the last year or two. It is the EPIC model; we’re trying to make sure that our graduate students are not just world changers but EPIC world changers. We believe in the philosophy that world changers come to Andrews University to become equipped to go back out into the world and serve. But when they leave here, we want them to be EPIC, which means they can access any sphere of endeavor, and have enough entrepreneurship skills to be able to go and start any business if they need to do so. We also need them to be able to be professional, by virtue of being graduate students. Then, we want to foster the pillar of intimacy: connecting with one another so that we can have not only networks built among graduate students, but eventually net worth built among graduate students. And then community is important, the aspect of us being able to take care of each other emotionally and mentally as well. Those are the four pillars we have for this year.

My personal motto for this year is, “Step by step, with God leading the way,” which means we can’t do anything without God to lead us and move us forward. But that also means we are being strategic and intentional about taking every step that we move forward.

I believe that this Graduate Student Associate is not trying to make moves that would only impact graduate students for the next year, but for many years to come. Just recently, we were able to announce the start of a graduate student scholarship that would be funded by AUGSA. It is an endowed scholarship, so it means that we have placed $15,000 for the initial scholarship that will stay in an account and accrue interest and interest will be paid out of that so that it can fund the scholarship. We will be distributing $5,000 from Spring 2023 towards that initiative, so graduate students across campus can apply and access the funds. We are not looking at short-term goals, but medium- and long-term goals as well.

You talked about the EPIC model; can you give an example of how AUGSA is using this model?
Just last week, we partnered with BSAS (Black Student Association of the Seminary) to bring in the CEO and president of Advent Health Organization in Illinois. He did a talk but also brought an entire HR team ready for graduate students to connect with them so that they could get on-the-spot hires. So, we’re trying to develop these types of relationships. We have been also working with the career center, trying to make sure that we have more opportunities for students after graduation, and within the context of students being able to get to do some of their practicum. We’re trying to make sure we can create new pathways for people to be able to do their practicums as well.

Every Thursday night, we also have Kinetic vespers, which is done in conjunction with University Towers. That helps take care of intimacy and community as well. But then, when people are asked to participate, it also helps build and foster the professionalism aspect of things. It helps to prepare them to move out of this space at Andrews University and go out into the world.

So, when we talk about entrepreneurship, professionalism, intimacy, and community, most of our projects and events that we take on have to fit within that framework.