Anderson Ward (Gamma Rho–East Carolina ’21), a senior pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business marketing, has been elected this year’s Student Body President of the Student Government Association (SGA). Ward has already been deeply involved in various leadership positions in KA, serving as Number I and Number IV, as well as the Director of Marketing and Communications for ECU’s Student Government Association (SGA).
Ward is serving a term that slightly overlaps two school years. “I was officially sworn in at the beginning of April,” he said from Greenville, North Carolina, the home of ECU, where he is spending the summer even though he is a native of Raleigh. “My term started then, and it will go through the beginning of March of next year. So during that 12-month period I’m required to be here on campus, I have a certain amount of office hours I have to meet. But I’m around anyway, meeting with people in other departments around ECU and figuring out what we can and can’t accomplish during my term. It’s been exciting, it’s been great so far. I’m in charge of this fall’s graduating class as well as next spring’s graduating class.”
Ward’s vice-president is Ava Barefoot, a North Carolina General Assembly Senate Intern, member of Alpha Phi Sorority, and longtime acquaintance of Ward and his family. “Ava and I have actually been talking about this since our freshman year of college,” Ward said. “It’s a great opportunity for both of us, we’ve always had leadership positions during our first couple years of college.”
Anderson Ward’s choice of ECU and his involvement in KA isn’t something that was haphazardly considered, however, as he is from a long line of family members who are also ECU grads and KA brothers. Beginning with his father, Joseph C. Ward III (Gamma Rho-East Carolina University ’76), Anderson’s membership is on the heels of his two older brothers, former SGA president Chandler Ward (Gamma Rho-East Carolina University ’18) and Joseph C. Ward IV (Gamma Rho-East Carolina University ’15).
“ECU is the only college I applied to,” he said. “My father and two older brothers were all KAs in the Gamma Rho Chapter, so this is very much a family thing. Every male in my family has been through KA at ECU, and they’ve all done tremendous things. I look up to them every single day. They’ve done so much for me, and I wanted to continue on with the legacy, to follow in their footsteps, to push myself, to step up and contribute, the same way they have for so many years now. It’s one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made, it was a great choice, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
