Everybody asks about the shirt and tie.

Syracuse University Student Association President Andrew Thomson is one of only a few students who can be seen strolling across campus in business attire, making him easily identifiable to his constituents. The shirt and the tie are the uniform of his office, a tool that helps ensure that university administrators will take him seriously as he works to better the lives of SU students, Thomson said. He wears them nearly every day, often beneath a blue jacket sporting SU’s seal on the lapel. But soon, Thomson will shed his uniform.

‘I won’t be wearing a suit nearly as often next semester,’ he said.

By next semester, Thomson, a 21-year-old senior, will have stepped down as SA president. He has been climbing the ranks in SU’s student government since the first few weeks of his freshman year. He leaves behind a legacy that includes leading the successful charge for a more student-friendly course scheduling paradigm and the initiation of a long reorganization process aiming to make SA more powerful.

Thomson began building his legacy since he joined the SA Assembly. Outgoing comptroller Erin Maghran, a senior who joined the Assembly at the same time as Thomson, said that he emerged as a leader almost immediately.

‘He has been leading this organization since the first day,’ Maghran said.

As a freshman member of SA’s Board of Elections and Membership, Thomson took a stand against a scandal involving a presidential candidate who was placed on the ballot without completing a petition, Maghran said. He showed his mettle by standing up against corruption within SA and challenging several senior members, an unusual act for a freshman, Maghran said.

Thomson also leaves behind the enormous time commitment that came along with his office, including 15 to 16 hours a day spent alternating between the SA office and the few classes to which he could make it.

So why does Thomson devote so much of his time to an organization which, by his own admission, goes unnoticed by much of the student body? Even though only 12 percent of students voted in this semester’s SA elections, Thomson said he is motivated by a desire to help improve student life at SU.

‘Even if they don’t understand or know what we do, it’s still helping them,’ he said.

Thomson said helping people has been a large focus in his life and serves as the common link between passions for technology and politics. In his hometown of Kennebunk, Maine, he managed Kennebunk High School’s computer networks. The position gave him the opportunity to be more than a ‘computer dork’ by working to help other people with their technology problems, he said. It also influenced his choice of information management as his first major at SU.

‘I didn’t want to do computer science and be stuck in a cubicle by myself,’ he said.

Thomson’s interest in politics came later, starting with his involvement in the YMCA’s Model State Legislature program during his junior year of high school. In addition to his involvement in SA, he has carried that passion to SU by taking political science as his second major.

Thomson said he is driven to serve others by his generally social nature, a trait he carries beyond the realm of technology and outside the SA office. He remains close to his freshman-year roommate, Scott Vogel, something that many college students cannot boast. Vogel, now a senior history and international relations major, said he and Thomson hardly ever fought during their time living together. Vogel said Thomson was always around to lend a hand, whether the problem had to do with girlfriends or PCs.

‘It was perfect, actually,’ Vogel said of his time with Thomson.

Published on December 2, 2003 at 12:00 pm