Announcing the 2016-2017 North American Executive Board

We are pleased to announce that the following North American student leaders have been elected to join the 2016-2017 North American Executive Board (NAEB)! The NAEB is composed of our top leaders in the region, and is responsible for programming and community building for liberty in the United States and Canada.

The 2016-2017 North American Executive Board members are:

  • Alexis Garretson, George Mason University
  • Brittany Wilson, University of North Carolina-Charlotte
  • Chris Harelson, LDS Business College
  • Cooper Williams, University of Oklahoma 
  • Cory Massimino, Seminole State College
  • Emily Reynolds, Florida Gulf Coast University
  • John Knetemann, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
  • Nate Baker, Mississippi State University
  • Rachel Chiu, Cornell University
  • Sam Dunkovich, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
  • Theryn Meyer, Simon Fraser University
  • Wade Craig, George Mason University

Each of this year’s board members have demonstrated outstanding leadership, interpersonal, and professional ability; we are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with them this year as we continue to grow the community for liberty in North America. Get to know each new NAEB member a bit better:

Alexis Garretson – George Mason University

AlexisGarretsonIn the past year, I was part of the ISFLC conference team and worked to build up the George Mason YAL club. I also coordinated conference sponsors for the Regional Conferences in the Mid-Atlantic region and brought students to these conferences as well. I am most looking forward to being a part of the team moving SFL through this transition period in the coming year. I am excited to work with students in the Mid-Atlantic and plan great conferences and events! My favorite figures are Peter Boettke, Bryan Caplan, Frederic Bastiat, and F.A. Hayek.

Brittany Wilson – University of North Carolina-Charlotte

BrittanyWilsonIn the past, I have contributed to Students For Liberty’s mission in a few different capacities. Before becoming a Campus Coordinator, I interned with SFL’s development team in Washington, DC. In this role, I assisted in donor research, processed donations, and gained experience and knowledge in non-profit fundraising. Then, this fall, I was brought on board to the SFL leadership team as a Campus Coordinator. Over the past year, SFL has empowered me through training and resources to make real, tangible change on campus and in my community and state. I’ve helped to double membership in my Young Americans for Liberty chapter, have hosted many events including the 2016 North Carolina YAL State Convention and an SFL Leadership Forum on my campus, and have created more than five pro-liberty student groups.

This year, I am most excited about expanding and strengthening the network for liberty in the Southeast through empowerment, activism, and building personal relationships with the outstanding leaders in my region. I am looking forward to using my past experience as an activist to mentor incoming leaders, while simultaneously learning from the experiences and opinions of the Campus Coordinators in my region.

By the end of the year, I hope to leave the Southeast stronger than its ever been before! The ideas of Frederic Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick and others have been extremely influential in my ideological development as a libertarian. However, I was introduced to the ideas of liberty thanks to the work of Ron Paul, and thus he will always be my personal favorite libertarian figure.

Chris Harelson – LDS Business College

In the IMG952617.jpgpast year, I have strengthened Utah’s liberty network by training students to organize in their communities as well as on their campuses, founded multiple pro-liberty student groups on college campuses throughout Utah, and hosted Utah’s first Students For Liberty Regional Conference.

I’m looking forward to working with the other talented members of the North American Executive Board to expand the student movement for liberty, equip SFL’s elite team of leaders with more tools, training, and opportunities, and help advance the next generation of standard bearers of the classical liberal and libertarian tradition.

My biggest influences include Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek.

Cooper Williams – University of Oklahoma

12064293_10206134309369088_324042064_n-209x300Leading Students For Liberty at The University of Oklahoma has been among the greatest things I’ve ever done. I have given presentations on ethical and economic issues related to liberty, including open borders, the ethics of legal punishment, intellectual property, and more. I also organized and promoted the ‘Refugees Welcome in Oklahoma’ rally and the ‘Exploring Anarchism’ Regional Conference. I’m thrilled to join the NAEB this year, as I’ll get many chances to encourage, organize, and empower student activists. I want to see them challenge their own beliefs, organize killer conferences, and establish a lasting presence on their campuses.

I’ll be attending the University of Oklahoma and graduating in December. My favorite figures in liberty include: Roderick Long, Robert Higgs, Charles W. Johnson, FA Hayek, Michael Huemer, Sheldon Richman, Emile Armand, Ivan Illich, and Karl Hess.

Cory Massimino – Seminole State College

CoryMassiminoSo far, my work with SFL has enabled me to: create the left-libertarian digital resources kit for Campus Coordinators to utilize; initiate and run SFLive, the Liberty.me podcast that shows of the talent of SFL activists; contribute to the SFL blog and get published in places like The Guardian and The American Conservative through my efforts as a Young Voices Advocate; help students organize virtual speaker events; and organize and run numerous virtual reading groups with academics such as Bryan Caplan, Steve Horwitz, Fabio Rojas, and others on issues ranging from immigration to economic calculation to Black Studies and more.

This next year on the board, I’m looking forward to the opportunities I have to expand SFL’s academic programs by training Campus Coordinators in their function and organization. Broadly, I want these educational efforts to be translated into action and to help run more virtual reading groups and virtual speaker events, create more educational resources kits, as well as develop new programs that enable students to organize Socratic Seminars and generally be successful intellectuals themselves. Ultimately, I want to provide the resources and environment for more students to learn about the ideas of liberty and become entrepreneurial truth-seekers in their own lives.

My liberty influences range primarily from the Aristotelian libertarians like Ayn Rand and Roderick Long, to the individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker and Murray Rothbard, to the classical liberals like Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek.

Emily Reynolds – Florida Gulf Coast University

Emily ReynoldsThis past year as a Campus Coordinator, I’ve increased the size and strength of my student organization, which was nominated for SFL Group of the Year and FGCU Club of the Year. I also helped organize the first Florida Gulf Coast Regional Conference at my university. The highlight of my experience with SFL has been serving as the Conference Director for a Focus Series Conference on Free Market Environmentalism. I’m very excited to be working with all the great people on this year’s Executive Board and to meet the new CCs over the summer. I’m also looking forward to the Regional Conferences this fall, and of course the ISFLC.

Some of my biggest influences include Friedrich Hayek, Robert Nozick, Camille Paglia, Deirdre McCloskey, and Ludwig von Mises.

John Knetemann – South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

naeb-15-knetemannWith Students For Liberty, I have worn many hats. I have been a Campus Coordinator, an Executive Board member, the Master of Ceremonies for the 2016 International Students For Liberty Conference, and the Co-Chairman of the North American Executive Board. As an Executive Board member, I was the Regional Director for the Great Plains, directed the Colorado Regional Conference, and organized the 2015 bus pick-up for ISFLC. So you could say, that I really, really love SFL!

This will be the third SFL board I have served on, and I am really excited to see what this new board brings to the table. From what I have noticed, every board for SFL from year to year operates very differently depending on who is on the board. Looking at the incoming members, I am, without a single doubt, confident that this incoming board is an absolute powerhouse. Some of my biggest influences include Howard Baejter Jr., Greg Lukianoff, Ron Paul, and Radley Balko.

Nate Baker – Mississippi State University

Nathaniel BakerI have been a Campus Coordinator for a year. As a CC, I have continued to spread the message of liberty on my campus and those around it. I have primarily focused on giving students the conference experiences I had, as I find them to be very impactful. I have been given the tools to empower student leaders and create environments that assist students in their intellectual exploration. Moving forward, I am particularly interested in creating quality Regional Conferences that both libertarian students and those yet to become libertarians are captivated by. This allows all students to be challenged and those open to new ideas to really get a picture of the society we advance. I really love the new Focus Series model as a tool to effectively accomplish this.

I am currently in the application process for Praxis. If that does not work out, I will continue my enrollment at Mississippi State University in the fall. In either case, I am very excited about serving on the board and advancing a free society. My intellectual influences include Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Thomas Sowell, Tom Woods, and Peter Schiff.

Rachel Chiu – Cornell University

Rachel ChiuTwo years ago, I began my SFL career as the only high school student in the Campus Coordinator program. I founded one of the first high school SFL-affiliated clubs, which, under my leadership, brought a contingent of students to ISFLC every year and continues to thrive today. As a college freshman, I served as Conference Director for the 2015 New York Regional Conference, an event which attracted over 150 registrants. Additionally, I represented Students For Liberty on Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File” in August 2015 (and received subsequent invitations to return). Now, as a member of the board, I hope to strengthen the Northeast region and make a positive, lasting contribution to SFL.

My biggest influences in the ideas of liberty are John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Milton Friedman, and all of the unnamed and unrecognized individuals who risk their lives everyday by standing up to tyrannical authorities and declaring their fundamental right to liberty.

Sam Dunkovich – University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Sam DunkovichIn my past with SFL, I would say my greatest achievement has been creating an SFL network in Wisconsin as the first CC in the state. From this, I have found around five new Wisconsin CCs for next year who are all excited to be a part of SFL. I also became a Young Voices Advocate and wrote articles addressing alternative medicine bans in Wisconsin and the presidential candidates and their views on LGBTQ rights. I have also written for SFL about ISFLC and my campus groups’ promotion of gun rights. Lastly, I hosted the first SFL Leadership Forum in Wisconsin together with CC Oakley Clark from Minnesota. This coming year, I am most looking forward to working with libertarian leaders all over the country and gaining skills and tips from them to continue the success of the Midwest. I am also excited to work with all the CCs in the Midwest and to continue improving as a region in the name of liberty.

My liberty influences are Jeffrey Tucker, Julia Tourianski, and Julie Borowski. Their social media presence and optimistic outlooks on liberty and anarchism are what first got me intrigued in libertarianism and want to get involved in the liberty movement.

Theryn Meyer – Simon Fraser University

Theryn MeyerThus far, I’ve helped organize the very first Vancouver Students For Liberty Regional Conference last year, with tremendous success! I’ve greatly contributed to the re-establishment of intellectual diversity and freedom of speech on my campus by cofounding and leading the single-issue club, SFU Advocacy for Men Boys. This year, I’m looking forward to getting more deeply involved with SFL and building strong relationships within the organization and, more importantly, meeting, mentoring, and inspiring new leaders in liberty.

My biggest influences include Margaret Thatcher, Thomas Sowell, and Ron Paul.

Wade Craig – George Mason University

naeb-15-Wade CIn the past few years, I have helped establish and maintain the OU Students For Liberty and Students for a Stateless Society. Together, those groups have brought half a dozen speakers from across the country to OU and hosted many more. We have held a rally to support refugees, protested war at the state capitol, and hosted nearly a dozen reading groups on libertarian classics like The Constitution of Liberty, Atlas Shrugged, The Machinery of Freedom, and For a New Liberty.

I’m looking forward to another year of helping SFL leaders achieve their goals as activists, professionals, and intellectuals! As chair of the NAEB, I especially hope to continue SFL’s mission of entrepreneurial activism to spread ideas and change minds. My biggest influences are Roderick T. Long, F. A. Hayek, and Israel Kirzner.