By Meghan Kita
Muhlenberg’s first Black student body president, Zaire Carter ’22, wants to approach every situation with the will of the students—all of the students—driving his decision-making.
Sit down with Zaire Carter ’22 and you’ll get the sense he’s not much of a sitter. He’s in constant motion, waving at passing students, faculty and staff—is there anyone on campus he doesn’t know?—leaning forward to emphasize a point, crossing and uncrossing his legs. His speech has the animated quality of someone who’s spent a lot of time on stage (he has) or who’s fresh off the campaign trail (he is).
This spring, Muhlenberg’s Student Government Association (SGA) held an election, and students selected Carter as their next president. He and SGA’s incoming executive board and representatives were inaugurated at a masked, distanced event in Parents Plaza on May 7. SGA’s incoming diversity, equity and inclusion chair Britney Jara ’23 came up with the idea for the event, which included student performances (singing, dancing, poetry) and remarks from students, faculty and staff, including College President Kathleen Harring. It looked more like the inauguration of a U.S. president than the inauguration of a Muhlenberg student body president, an event that’s typically less visible and elaborate.
But Carter wants to get away from what typically happens. He’s been involved with SGA as a representative since his first year at Muhlenberg. This has given him insight into how the group, which he describes as “the bridge between students and the administration,” works (and fails to work). He says SGA is bureaucratic and slow. He’s noticed that the makeup of SGA (predominantly white) hasn’t always reflected the makeup of the student body (still predominantly white, but less so than SGA). That divide has shaped how student groups are funded; for example, the Office of Multicultural Life’s affinity groups began to automatically receive SGA funding at the start of each fiscal year only last semester.
He translated his experience with SGA into a campaign pitch to his peers that went something like this:
“Student government has not been there for you. It doesn’t have to be that way. For the first time, I want you to feel like this is your student government. It’s not ‘the’ student government, it’s yours. You have a part of it. You can participate in it, change it, influence it—it’s yours … My legitimacy comes from the student body, not from the administration or SGA. If what students are saying isn’t central to the decisions that we make in SGA, then we’re lost. I felt that’s what was happening. I wanted to tell students, ‘I won’t make any major, big decisions without talking to you.’”
And that message sealed his victory. He defeated his two opponents, earning 66.7 percent of the vote, to become the College’s first Black student body president. To him, the victory was an acknowledgment that students of color have not always had a seat at the table in SGA decision-making and that there’s an appetite for that to change.
“There’s this symbolic nature to it. If it means that someone else feels empowered or feels that they have the capacity to do this because it’s been done before ... if someone feels, ‘If Zaire can do this, it means the door is wide open for me and anyone,’ if it provides that for someone, I’m very happy,” he says. “There is a lot of weight to it. You want to do everything to perfection. When you’re the first anything, you’re setting the precedent, the boundaries, the course folks are going to want to take after you. They’re going to want to go further than you did—and they should want to. If not, what’s the point?”
Carter speaking at the Fall 2021 Student Involvement Fair
Carter speaking at the Fall 2021 Student Involvement Fair
Carter (far right) played Twig in the 2019 Summer Music Theatre production of Bring It On: The Musical.
Carter (far right) played Twig in the 2019 Summer Music Theatre production of Bring It On: The Musical.
Carter came to Muhlenberg from Burlington County, New Jersey, just outside Philadelphia. He tells his Muhlenberg origin story like this:
“When I was going through the college process, it came down to Pace University and Muhlenberg. Now, I wanted to go to Pace, but my mom wanted me to go to Muhlenberg, so we compromised and I ended up going to Muhlenberg.”
Really, though, what appealed to him about the College was the ability to double major. At Pace, he would have been in a bachelor of fine arts program, which would have left little to no flexibility to pursue other interests. At Muhlenberg, he’s studying both theatre and political science.
“There’s so much intersection between what we talk about in my political science courses and what we talk about in my theatre courses,” he says. “Muhlenberg’s theatre program is grounded within the foundation of the more knowledge you have, the more well-rounded you’ll be, and the more well-rounded you are, the better artist or actor you will be ... the better person you will be. Being able to have that holistic approach to the arts was key for me.”
Carter joined the College as part of its Emerging Leaders Program and quickly got involved in just about everything. In his first two years at the College, in addition to being elected as an SGA representative, he became a tour guide, the president of the Men of Color Network, a member of the student conduct board and a resident advisor. He also performed in several theatre productions, including as a featured role—a rare feat for a first-year student—in 2019’s Summer Music Theatre production of Bring It On: The Musical and as part of that fall’s Sedehi Diversity Project (SDP) ensemble.
“In thinking about Zaire’s first and even second year on campus, I can’t count the times he would walk—or tap dance, if I’m being honest—into my office to tell me about a new opportunity he was told about, nominated for or interested in,” says Associate Director of Admissions Chelsea Schoen, one of Carter’s mentors. “While there were certainly moments when I would remind him that it’s okay to say no sometimes, he and I both knew that he would inevitably go for the position or opportunity we were discussing. And what I always knew during these conversations is that he would ultimately be successful and impactful in doing so.”
The pandemic slammed the brakes on Carter’s busy-is-an-understatement lifestyle. While he struggled at first to adjust to life at home, he was able to channel some of his energy into his role as director of the 2020 SDP. Each year, a new ensemble conducts interviews with students, faculty and staff and uses quotes from those interviews to build a production rooted in the issues the Muhlenberg community cares about at that moment. In June 2020, Carter and the ensemble conducted more than 100 interviews. They spent the next two months transcribing, script-building and rehearsing a production that would, for the first time, have to take place over Zoom. It dealt with the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racial injustice, the resurgence of Black Lives Matter, political polarization and the looming presidential election.
“Zaire and I were in the process of putting together the ensemble when we all were sent home,” says Assistant Professor of Theatre Leticia Robles-Moreno, SDP’s faculty advisor. “I am amazed at how Zaire got to create a sense of community with the ensemble over Zoom and how his leadership helped them to reimagine their work, which was a powerful and inspiring video performance.”
SDP debuted during the Class of 2024’s virtual Orientation and wrapped with a series of Zoom performances for upperclassmen, faculty and staff in mid-September. After that, Carter faced a semester of virtual learning from his New Jersey home. The College had asked him to be on campus as a resident advisor—first-year students were the only full class on campus that fall—but he declined. Instead, he immersed himself in his schoolwork and focused on working out, eating better and taking care of himself.
“Going from zooming all the time to Zooming all the time … hitting that wall, going back home, your role as a member of this community changes,” he says. “It slows down. Maybe I needed that.”
By the time Spring 2021 arrived, Carter’s reservations about returning to campus competed with his desire to get out of the house and back to some semblance of his pre-COVID life. He opted to return to Muhlenberg, where he was a resident advisor in East Hall. Pandemic protocols complicated that role—what was and wasn’t allowed could vary week to week depending on COVID conditions, and rule-breaking had the potential to affect the health and safety of other students to a degree a pre-pandemic infraction rarely could.
However, he says, his residents were great, and that allowed him to focus his attention on other things. One was an in-person iteration of SDP, one that took the fall script and adapted it to reflect all that had happened since the previous summer—a presidential election, a rise in anti-Asian racism, the continued but evolving presence of COVID-19. To accommodate size limitations on gatherings, the performance took place at four different stations, with small numbers of audience members rotating between them. Each station had an activity associated with it: For example, at the station that dealt with institutional accountability, the area outside Robertson and South Halls was marked with zones labeled from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” SDP ensemble members read statements (like “Muhlenberg as an institution is anti-racist”) and audience members moved to show where they fell on the spectrum. They left with colored bracelets that corresponded to the topic they felt most strongly about as a reminder to act on any dissatisfaction they were feeling with the College.
“When you’re in a theatre, there are folks on stage or in the performance space while you’re in the audience. We wanted to blur those lines,” Carter says. “In the work we do, you cannot just be a spectator. You have to be a spec-actor.”
His other major project last spring involved SGA, but it wasn’t originally his own bid for the presidency. At first, his goal was to change the election process. For years, the student body was allowed to vote only for president and the 22 student representatives. The other executive board positions—such as vice president, treasurer and secretary—were chosen by current members of SGA. Carter started a petition calling on SGA to allow students to vote for all positions and collected a couple hundred signatures. Some of those same students spoke at an SGA town hall in March, criticizing the election process and SGA more generally for its disconnect from students, specifically students of color. After that meeting, the election process changed.
“I felt personally that we had so much momentum in the spring. There was so much excitement around SGA. It seemed like we had a spark of students caring about SGA and knowing about us and that was really important to me,” Carter says. While he respected the other candidates for president, “I thought that, if in charge, the direction they would take the College and SGA, it would either go back or it would stay static. I thought that I could push it forward.”
Carter with Marti the Mule at the Spring 2021 inauguration event
Carter with Marti the Mule at the Spring 2021 inauguration event
Carter and College President Kathleen Harring co-starred in a welcome-back video that went out to students, faculty and staff before the Fall 2021 semester began.
Carter and College President Kathleen Harring co-starred in a welcome-back video that went out to students, faculty and staff before the Fall 2021 semester began.
So Carter entered the race, with his friend Robin Chodak ’22 as his campaign manager. They made buttons and stickers. They recorded campaign videos. They stood at tables in Parents Plaza and talked to students. Carter participated in a debate. At the end of what Carter describes as “the most exhausting week of my life,” SGA had a new president-elect.
His tenure, which began this semester, has revolved around making sure the students he represents—as many of them as possible—know who he is and feel comfortable approaching him. He recorded a welcome-back-to-campus video with Harring. He spoke at Opening Convocation and at an event celebrating Henry Melchior Muhlenberg’s birthday. He and other members of SGA tabled during Orientation Weekend and at the Student Involvement Fair.
At the fair, a junior came up to him and said, “You’ve been in this job for five days and already I know more about SGA than I have in the past two years.” This, to Carter, was the ultimate compliment. He’d seen SGA host open meetings that drew only a few students. He’d seen SGA send out student surveys and receive only a few responses. He’d seen former SGA leaders become frustrated by this perceived lack of student interest.
“Students wouldn’t be responsive to a group they felt was never there for them. No one is going to fill out your survey or come to your event if you don’t care for them first. If you don’t tell them you’re there to support them, they’re not going to do anything for you,” Carter says. “People have to see you. Representation matters and visibility matters. People cannot go to you if they don’t know you exist.”
Some of the student wants and needs he hopes to address are not new. For example, students have been asking for free laundry and free hygiene products in women’s and gender-neutral bathrooms for at least the last two years. A newer issue he’s been hearing about is the dining situation: Dining Services, like many other businesses nearly two years into the pandemic, is struggling with worker and supply-chain shortages, and students aren’t happy about how that’s affecting hours and options.
A refrain Carter has heard from SGA leadership during his time at Muhlenberg is that change happens slowly. He acknowledges that these issues are complicated—there are lots of stakeholders and moving pieces in, for example, the laundry decision, and that’s one reason it has taken so long to move the needle. Still, he says SGA is making progress on some of these issues because, under his leadership, the group has a clearer, student-driven purpose as well as a closer relationship with the administrators who need to be on board with these types of changes.
A challenge SGA will always face, though, is that its leaders, however visible and visionary, will soon graduate, as Carter will next May. What happens then?
“I am starting to feel that students know about SGA and are comfortable coming to us. I hope that this relationship continues long after I’m gone,” Carter says. “I know that while I may be the first Black student body president, I will not be the last. There will come a day when having a Black president won’t be a rarity, but an abundant reality. And when that day comes, I’ll know that I was one person in a long line of others who helped open the door to that new world. And that’s a legacy I can live with.”
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