Amanda speaking at a CoSHI (Colorado Sexual Health Initiative) conference with her friend, Camila Spanic 
Amanda (left) with Mocha the porcupine during her summer job at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo 
Amanda and her fiancé Zachary at a Wizards game 
Amanda speaking at Rep. Steph Vigil’s launch party 
Amanda with some of her students from the UCCS Office of Inclusive Services at the Walk for Down Syndrome
When Amanda Ford enrolled at UCCS, she viewed college as something to just check off the list, but her experience ended up as so much more than that.
“I grew up in Colorado Springs and decided to go to UCCS, because it was a little better cost-wise and I wanted to keep my job at the time,” Amanda explained. “I honestly went in with expectations of ‘It’s just college. I need to get it done with real quick.’ But then my all expectations were exceeded and I really got involved on campus and ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.”
A significant part of Amanda’s involvement was in the Student Government Association (SGA), of which she was a member for all four years of her time here, with two of them as Senator at Large, followed by a year as Senator of Business and the last as Director of Finance. She also works at the Office of Inclusive Services on campus while earning her bachelor’s in Business Management with a Political Science minor.
“Student government has been awesome,” said Amanda. “I’ve enjoyed the work and the people, and the advisors are amazing. It’s been cool to have faculty-type mentors for all four years as opposed to only one semester. As far as the work itself, it’s nice to be involved in actually creating change and writing policy on a very small local scale.”
Projects that Amanda has contributed to in SGA include writing bills to offer harm reduction services on campus (such as providing fentanyl test strips), working on various resolutions for initiatives for Dreamers and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients and municipal election issues, using her experience in local politics to help bring politicians and local figures to visit campus, advocating for campus budgets and much more.
“I’ve done so much in SGA, but one of the most exciting was as Director of Finance when I worked really hard to make sure that we had our senators on the budget advisory committee receiving a recognition stipend,” said Amanda. “That’s something pretty important to me – ensuring people get properly compensated. Additionally, I worked really hard to make sure that we had a line item in our fiscal year budget for ROAR Daze, our weeklong celebration of multicultural events to kickoff the semester and highlight the variety of our students’ cultures. Last year we were able to finally get it into our end of the year budget, so that money is allocated in advance and ensures the programming isn’t in jeopardy. I love ROAR Daze, so it was exciting to be able to help for one of my favorite events on campus.”
Amanda pursues similar initiatives elsewhere with extensive experience working in local politics, often on education issues, and her job in the Office of Inclusive Services as a student mentor.
“I worked for a ton of different local candidates and on several campaigns for a few years, then more specific campaigns that I became really interested in, like education, education policy and education reform,” Amanda said. “One was for school board campaign, which is partly what caused me to pivot towards education.”
“With that experience, I was hired into a post-grad job working for Harrison School District 2 in Fox Meadow Middle School’s Affective Needs program,” she added. “I’m starting as a paraprofessional for the rest of this school year while earning my licensure and then moving to full-time teaching in the fall.”
Amanda noted how her time at UCCS helped her pursue a specialized path and allowed her to explore specific interests.
“The biggest surprise about attending UCCS was how much I could pursue specific experiences,” she said. “I was sort of naturally pushed in that direction with the things I was involved with on campus, but I think if I would have gone to another school I wouldn’t have been able to get such niche options.”
Amanda mentioned how advisors and faculty helped make those experiences happen and underscored that while there are help and resources readily available on campus, putting yourself out there a little goes a long way.
“Three of my biggest influences have been Noelle San Souci and Brad Bayer, who are both advisors for SGA and the Live Leadership Scholarship, and they have been so great, and Dr. Chad Bowman in the College of Business, whose class changed my life.” Amanda said. “But, you have to put into school what you want to get out of it. Get involved on campus and make those connections, because your experience is vastly different if you’re just showing up and going through the motions versus showing up and attending events.”
The last four years have given Amanda a much different view on school compared to her original expectations, and what started as an indifferent choice became a pivotal pathway for the College of Business graduate.
“I really like the like tight-knit campus community that’s able to give that fun college experience too,” said Amanda. “Because it is smaller, you can utilize a lot of the services and it’s easier to understand and learn where everything is at and what you have at your disposal.”
“I will recommend it to anyone I talk to,” she laughed. “The tuition is reasonable, you can still have the college experience, and then feel prepared after graduation. So, why go anywhere else?”