Growing up, Ashley Wright thought about becoming a lawyer.

Now, she plans on becoming a lobbyist.

This change in career goals led her to her new position as Student Government Association president.

The SGA executive office election ended April 1, with all positions uncontested. Wright will be inaugurated Thursday and will assume her duties April 21.

As a sophomore accounting major, Wright planned to run for vice president and wait to run for president until her senior year. However, when the person who planned to run for president could not, Wright stepped up to fill the role.

“It was two days before election packets were due and I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it,’” Wright said.

During each U.S. presidential debate, Wright and her uncle would turn on the television and have their own debate.

Both Wright’s mother and grandmother served on her hometown school board — her mother as president and her grandmother as a recorder for the meetings.

Wright wanted to become part of her high school student council, but could not because of her involvement with other activities.

When she arrived at the university her freshman year, Wright had friends in SGA that wanted her to join and became involved. After getting more adjusted to college life, SGA pulled her in even more. She finally decided to run for office Feb. 22.

“(The desire) was always there, I just needed to have a little bit of a push,” Wright said. “I think that’s almost for any organization, you got to have a little push to try something new.”

Wright ran the Student Government Coalition Conference during her first year in SGA, which brought together student governments from around the Tri-State.

“It was a huge thing for me. I realized that a little thing can be something big,” Wright said. “I probably looked nuts and crazy making sure everything was running right, but it was definitely worth it.”

SGA President Alexa Bueltel has been working on changing the final schedule since she became president last year. Graduating students currently walk across the stage knowing they still have finals to complete.

Wright has attended campus administrator meetings alongside Bueltel and has been instrumental in pushing the issue.

Campus administrator meetings have student leaders meet with university administrators and discuss campus issues. Wright attended the meetings as a new member, which caught Bueltel’s attention.

“The fact that as a sophomore (she’s) stepping up has really impressed me,” Bueltel said. “She has only been in SGA for a year, but I feel like she’s been in it for her entire time here. I see the passion that I have for SGA in her.”

In addition to continuing to push for the finals change, Wright plans to add more charging stations and water bottle filling stations across campus. There is one charging station in University Center East and one water bottle filling station in the Orr Center.

Wright also said she wants to increase communication between students and organizations on campus.

One of the ways she plans to achieve better communication is to promote a centralized calendar that would enable students to go to one place and have all events listed for every organization.

She said OrgSync accomplishes this, but students are unaware of the calendar and she wants to increase that awareness.

“Doing things for students is what I want. That’s what it should be. It’s student government,” Wright said. “I really want to be able to help out the students, and I want people to be able to approach me and be like, ‘Hey, I have this issue. What can we do?’”