Former Associated Student Government presidents Patrick Keenan-Devlin (Weinberg and Bienen ’06), Jonathan Webber (Weinberg ’08) and Neal Sales-Griffin (SESP ’09) said their time spent as chief executive of the student body characterized their time at Northwestern.
Though the young alumni have very different careers today, all three said their ASG experiences shaped and influenced their real-world aspirations.
“ASG was my life,” said Sales-Griffin, who served as president from spring 2007 until spring 2008. “Every minute I wasn’t in a class, or I wasn’t writing a paper, or I wasn’t downtown working, I was doing ASG work.”
Keenan-Devlin, who held the position during the 2005-06 school year, estimated he spent an average of 50 hours on the job each week his senior year. And while Sales-Griffin and Keenan-Devlin both characterized their pre-presidential experience in ASG as “limited,” Webber said he was actively involved in the organization all four years, starting as a senator his freshman year and serving as speaker of the Senate before his presidential term during the 2007-08 school year. Though this experience did not direct him to his current career, Webber, who works in consulting and plans to attend business school in the near future, said he believes his time in ASG has proven useful in the real world.
“(ASG) didn’t direct me to my job,” he said. “But the experience helps a lot. … Being in ASG gives you a really unique experience working with students, faculty, administrators. The exposure to different parties prepares you.”
Sales-Griffin said after he graduated last spring, he reflected on his time at NU and in ASG to decide what he wanted to do next.
“I tried to essentially pause and reflect on what I would like to do with myself,” he said. “I did think about a lot of my experience over the years working at Northwestern through ASG and in general to figure out what I really wanted to be doing.”
Since graduating, Sales-Griffin has remained involved at NU working as a driver for SafeRide, which he said has been “a good way to make ends meet.”
The service is now directed by his friend and fellow ASG alumnus Paul-David Shrader (Weinberg ’09).
In January, Sales-Griffin began working for Sandbox Industries, a “venture capital firm and start-up incubator,” where he said he worked to help start companies, but he left that position about two weeks ago. “I decided that I wanted to start my own company and I don’t even know what that company is,” he said.
He said he decided to quit the job for the same reason he was involved in ASG, citing a conversation he had one night during his time in office with former President Mike McGee, a Communication senior, and current President Claire Lew, a SESP junior.
“We came to the realization that the reason we were doing what we were doing for Northwestern-and in actuality, all of our lives-was to pursue happiness for ourself and others,” he said. “The hours upon hours upon hours of work in that ASG office working for Northwestern students to make your lives better was essentially to make you happy and to create happiness for us by serving others. So that is essentially why I quit my job, why I decided to start this company, and that realization working at Northwestern for ASG is something I will be forever thankful for.”
Keenan-Devlin referred to his time as president as “formative” because of the responsibilities the position required and the organization’s large budget.
“(The ASG president) ultimately serves as the student face of Northwestern to the wider community, so it requires you to face many challenges since you are dealing with so many different interests and personalities and groups,” he said.
Additionally, Keenan-Devlin said skills he acquired as president directly transferred into his post-graduation pursuits. He said he has worked as a health policy advocate and later as a legislative director for a public interest organization, Citizen Action–Illinois, in which he drew on the advocacy and lobbying experience he gained as president. In July 2009, he left his position at Citizen Action–Illinois to run for state representative in Evanston, coming in second in the Democratic primary held in February. Since his campaign, Keenan-Devlin said he has completed his first year of law school and served as a campaign director for the Responsible Budget Coalition, an organization that advocates tax reform in Illinois state government.
“Being a candidate once before when I was ASG president certainly informed me as to some of the challenges I would be facing as state representative,” he said. “You are under constant scrutiny (from the media). When I was an ASG presidential candidate, I went door to door talking to students who would one day vote for my election and that served me well when I had to go door to door talking about why I would be the best representative for the 18th legislative district in the Illinois House of Representatives. ASG prepared me there as well.”
Sales-Griffin said he does not have specific plans to run for any office at this time, but spending time in the campus political scene increased his interest in the wider political world.
“I would definitely not rule the possibility out because it is one of the ultimate ways to serve and give back to people,” he said.
Webber said he has not run for a real-world political office yet, but he might “get back into” electoral politics in a few years. At the end of his senior year and immediately after graduation, he said he ran his brother’s campaign for state representative in Missouri.
“I wanted to go into politics before, but (my experience as ASG president) further confirmed that,” he said.
While Keenan-Devlin said some at NU might not realize it, ASG offers students the opportunity to develop skills that can be applied in many professional, real-world contexts.
“Looking back on it, it really is true that ASG really is a microcosm of the real world,” he said. “It paid off in many ways.”[email protected]
