I am running for President and Vice President because I truly believe that although ACM has done a good job making a community for the technology enthusiasts at UTSA, we have the potential to do so much more. My goal is to make sure that everybody interested in tech has a community where they are loved, accepted, and given a place to grow. My goals for ACM are the success and inclusion for members. I want to host both more workshops and more social events for members to both grow as professionals and as members of a community. I also want to promote our amazing suborganizations like ICPC and Coding in Color to make sure everybody has a community that they can be a part of. Under my leadership, everybody and everyone interested in tech will be welcomed with open arms. And those welcomed in will also be given all the resources, advice, and networks necessary to ensure that they find a place for them after graduation, whether that be in industry, academia, government, or independent development.
I believe I would be best to serve the ACM community as your President or Vice President as I've demonstrated inclusiveness and leadership over the past year during my time as Membership Officer. I always have and continue to prioritize including everybody in ACM. I make it a point to attend as many ACM events as possible and meet as many members as I can to make sure they are involved. To me, all ACM members are friends and I've undoubtedly made that clear this year. I even have the numbers to back it up. Through my outreach push and friendly attitude, I've helped ACM achieve a record-breaking 70 full-time members (7 event points) in Fall '22, a record-breaking 123 Open House check-ins in Spring '23 (more than double that of last year), a record-breaking RowdyHacks registration of over 800 (also more than double that of last year), and a record-breaking diversity percentage of 69%. TL;DR, I'm a record-breaker.
Not only have I onboarded and included members, but I've helped serve those members through my various acts of leadership. In Fall '22, I worked with our very awesome Junior Membership Officer Indra to plan ACM's involvement in BestFest, selling 366 sno-cones, which, you guessed it, is another ACM record-breaker. I also worked with the CS department to help run their Resume Review event and took it from a 4 professor event in Fall to a 10 reviewer event with professionals from Google, USAA, and Valero in Spring. I led presentations for our Spring Open House, presenting in 20 classes myself and planning 16 more from other officers. I also led Outreach for RowdyHacks, where I also planned and did presentations in classes, as well as reached out to various Colleges such as the College of Business, the College of Engineering and Integrated Design, the College of Science, and the Honors College to help promote RowdyHacks.
I also have the network and connections necessary to make ACM more of a success than it already is. I'm networked throughout student organizations, being an Inducted Member of VOICES, an ACM representative for the College of Science Student Council (and the first Inducted Member in the entire organization), and having talked to leadership from the Robotics Automation Society, Console Cowboys, and CompTIA. I'm heavily involved with the Computer Science department, having talked to almost all lecturing professors, and working with the CS faculty often. I'm involved with Leadership and Volunteer Services, knowing many of their faculty, and having completed all of their Student Leadership Academy classes as well as participated in their 2022 LeaderShape program.
I also have the technical skills necessary to lead aspiring Computer Scientists and other technology-driven individuals. Over the summer of 2022 I worked at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory working in their Air and Missile Defense Sector in their Tactical Systems Prototyping and Deployment group as a Software Engineer. This summer, I've accepted an offer to work for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratories in their AI Software Architectures & Algorithms as part of their Summer Research Program.
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/parker-leathers/