Junior Blake Exline says that if he had to pick one thing, his favorite part of Saint Louis University is the sense of community. 

“With as many students as we have, I still feel like this is a tight knit community,” Exline said. “It’s rare that you’ll walk down West Pine and not have someone smile at you and say hi.”

This year, Exline is giving back to the community he loves by serving as the President of the Student Government Association.

Exline, a Health Management major from Indianapolis, joined SGA last year as the Griesedieck Complex senator. He also participated as a member of the Food Services Concerns Committee and the co-chair of the Residential Affairs Committee.

Exline discovered his passion for senate in December of last year when a change in Housing and Residence Life security policy sparked concern among students.The new policy stated that the university would no longer contract with the security company that had manned the desks of the dorms at night. Instead, desks were to go unmanaged during the day, and  students would work the desks at night. Students were upset not only about the late hours for the desk workers, but also over what they felt was a downgrade in campus security.

“I worked closely with last year’s president, Matt Ryan, meeting with administrators to make sure student concerns were addressed,” Exline said, “I took away that with SGA, you learn to take the energy students have and feed that into making change.”

After his experience working with the security policy, Exline knew he wanted to do more with SGA than just be a senator. He set his sights on an executive board position.

“My interests didn’t necessarily lie in one of the vice presidential positions entirely, so I thought, ‘Why not?’” Exline said.

Exline stressed that having the support of six qualified vice presidents was essential to his campaign.

“I think what makes us unique as an executive board is that we weren’t all necessarily friends who had been talking about doing this,” Exline said. “I put together a ticket with the interests of SGA in mind.”

He hopes to see the success of his campaign continue as he and the VPs begin to tackle some of the goals presented in their platforms. Their plans include improving mail services on campus and working with Chartwells to improve the quality of meal plans.

Outside SGA, Exline was also part of Decadence, a SLU a cappella group.

“I’ve been singing since I was little,” Exline said. “That’s the only thing I feel I’m missing by taking a position like this. Not just the singing aspect, but the friends I made through singing with Decadence.”

When he’s not singing or passing senate bills, Exline enjoys running and biking in Forest Park. He also enjoys pickup basketball games. Though he claims to be terrible, he insists that he is still better than previous SGA president Ryan.

“One-on-one basketball was something we did during the transition period over the summer. It would give us a chance to talk and play a bit,” Exline said. “I would always win.”

While even Exline admits his claims of basketball skill could be questionable, his dedication to his role as president is clear.

“I like that I get to be a catalyst for change. The best part is seeing the little changes that students get fired up about.”