Mitchell Colbert
SSDP Board Application
The Basics
School: Cabrillo College
Email: mitchellrcolbert@gmail.com
Major(s) / Minor(s) / Areas of study: Political Science
Current year in school: Graduate/SSDP Alumni from SJSU, enrolled at community college now.
Expected graduation year: Spring, 2011
What are your tentative plans after college?
Working part time while going to school to save money
for graduate school and fill in some gaps in my education.
Leadership Experience
Describe your advocacy skills and experience. Include work outside of SSDP.
My first advocacy experience came from my
two years organizing with Students for Quality Education (SQE), their major
goal was to end the budget cuts to higher education. With SQE I received and
utilized formal training as a citizen lobbyist; supported legislation through
the state legislature; wrote and delivered speeches at rallies; planned
marches, occupations, guerrilla theater, and other protest actions. I have
significant door-to-door canvassing and phonebanking experience from my time
with Grassroots Campaigns Inc and Working Partnerships USA, working on
political campaigns for progressive causes, such as raising taxes on
millionaires. With Yes on 19 I got experience lobbying citizen groups for
political support, such as Americans for Safe Access and the Wo/Men's Alliance
for Medical Marijuana. As president of SSDP, I got experience soliciting funds
from local groups; in our case, a local dispensary became our benefactor and
helped our members get to the DC lobbying event. My skills are lobbying,
planning, logistics, and public speaking.
How do you plan on balancing a busy schedule as a student, an SSDP activist, and a board member?
I
currently am a student at Cabrillo College taking only two classes to hold off
student loan payments, it is an extremely light class load that will not
conflict in any way with my duties as a board member. I am also working part
time, as a bartender, content writer, and doing voter outreach; despite that, I
have a lot of free time still. As this is a two year term, I may be starting
graduate school towards the end of my term, even that will not interfere with
my responsibilities as a director. The best way I have found to balance my
schedule is to take a jugglers approach, touch on everything constantly to keep
things in the air without getting so focused on one that I let the others drop.
SSDP Chapter Experience
What formal positions have you held in your SSDP chapter? When?
I
was the chapter president of San Jose State University from the moment I
stepped in until when I graduated, May 2010 until May 2011. I saw a flyer, came
to a meeting and Alex Woon, the previous president, felt I would make a
wonderful replacement for the chapter.
Describe your leadership style, particularly within your chapter.
I
am prone to micromanaging people and my own life, which can be a good thing for
productivity and multitasking, such as when I had to do a half dozen different
things at once with the Proposition 19 campaign. I try to keep fully open
communication with all members and get people's ideas and collaborate to a
greater good, rather than enforce my view on the group tyrannically. I try to
foster a culture of education and create new leaders for the movement, because
I recognize that no one person can be a movement in themselves. I am a very
erudite person when it comes to drug law; I am well-read on the law, politics,
and science behind legalization. When it comes to my leadership, I have tried
to pass on my knowledge to others for use after I am gone, similar to how Alex
passed on much of his knowledge to me via books and other literature. I am
generally a pretty laid back leader but when I have to I will be firm and make
sure work gets done, I guess you could say I have a flexible leadership style.
Describe one project that you led or are leading. What was/is your role? What has this project accomplished?
While
I was at SJSU, our SSDP chapter had an entry in SJSU's Tunnel of Oppression
2011. The Tunnel of Oppression was an art project where we had to decorate a
10x10 room to tell the story of how the war on drugs was a war on us, which was
the theme of the piece. I was the director of it, I did all the planning,
logistics, and much of the art; other members and alumni helped with artwork as
well. This project provided information about various components of the war on
drugs, including the prison-industrial complex, the racial arrest disparity,
drug cartels, and more. The room was so successful that some student-employees
from the school asked to use our art for future presentations to students. It
also was an avenue to increase SSDP's exposure on campus, as hundreds of
students and faculty see the Tunnel every year.
What fundraising or revenue building experience have you had in the past?
While with SSDP, I worked out a deal with a local
dispensary to give the profits of a raffle they were having to our chapter,
which ended up being nearly $300. Over winter break, I wrote an article for
SSDP's section in High Times, about my involvement with the Yes on 19 campaign;
this got another $150 for our chapter. Pi Sigma Alpha, the political science
honors society, is responsible for planning the political science convocation
ceremony at SJSU, a major event for fundraising for the organization via ticket
sales; while with PSA I was instrumental in helping plan convocation in 2010.
Additionally, I have experience going door-to-door soliciting funding from my
time with Grassroots Campaigns Inc, working on behalf of the Democratic
National Committee in 2008. On a more personal level, I have experience writing
essays and filling out applications for scholarships/grants, these same skills
can be used to do grant writing for the organization.
The Board
Why do you want to serve on the SSDP board?
I
have a passion for drug policy and I have loved my time working with SSDP,
being a Director would let me extend and deepen my involvement in this
organization that I love. I am primarily interested in helping to create our
national strategy and gaining a better understanding of the inner workings of
SSDP. As a political science major who wants to go to graduate school, this
position would be an excellent way to spend my time off before graduate school.
More importantly it would be a wonderful personal learning opportunity for me
and a chance to share my own knowledge with others.
What do you believe are the board's most important functions?
The Board has several critically important functions,
the most important being crafting a national strategy and selecting our
executive director. Our executive director provides our leadership, even the
best funded organization in the world would fail with bad leadership. Our
strategy is our means to accomplish our goals as an organization, it is our
reason for being; if we have a bad strategy we will fail to achieve the massive
successes we have in the past. The day to day functioning of the Board,
collecting fees, approving and revoking charters, while slightly less
important, is still crucial to keep us functioning smoothly as an organization.
Another important, informal, function of Directors is supporting other members
and chapters, like Alex Woon and others from SSDP National did for SJSU during
the Proposition 19 campaign. Aside from our executive director, the Board is
the other organ of SSDP that provides an example of leadership; every Director
upholds the image of SSDP and is a public representative of our mission.
What are your goals for your board tenure (be as specific as possible)?
My
goals will partially depend on which committees I am part of, and what those
committees are working on. First, I would familiarize myself with all the
projects the Board has been working on, so I can make educated decisions in
regards to our national strategy and other issues. After becoming knowledgeable
about the current state of affairs, depending on what I felt needed the most
help, I would fill in what I saw as the gaps in our current Board. If, for
example, I felt we didn't have enough people working on our national strategy
or recruitment, I would feel more inclined to work on those issues rather than
go where we already have enough talent. Specifically, I am very interested in
helping craft our strategy, I also have a keen interest in budgeting so if
possible I would like to work on budgetary matters as well. Specifically,
for me as a medical marijuana patient, I would like to spearhead an effort to
scale back the federal clampdown on state medical dispensaries, restoring
dignity to the lives of my fellow patients.
If elected to the board, would you retain a leading role and/or formal position with your chapter?
As I
do not have a current leading role nor formal position with any chapter, I have
no role to retain. I currently am attending meetings with the UCSC SSDP chapter.
