Ekpe’s introduction to serving fellow students came through her role as the graduate assistant for TCU’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. During her second year on campus, she got involved with the Graduate Student Senate.
Unlike Honeycutt, Ekpe didn’t need to run for the position. She was elected by the graduate leadership board that preceded her through the recommendation from then-president, Courtney Kimmel. “Courtney added my name and believed in my ability to be successful in the position.”
As president, Ekpe is focusing on increasing the visibility and amplifying the voices of graduate students.
“TCU is 85 percent undergraduate and 15 percent graduate students,” Ekpe said. “Without the 15 percent, you still don’t have TCU. We have to remember that 15 percent holds a lot of weight. No university walks around 85 percent. We walk around 100 percent.”
She said graduate students are essential to the success of higher education.
“If we want to sustain higher education, [it] involves graduate students,” she said. “We do the research and teaching, and we are the people that come back into the academic realm and academia to serve the institution, whether that’s through student affairs or academic affairs.”
Ekpe said her strategy of bringing graduate students together and encouraging them to voice their concerns is starting to generate results.
“I am the voice of many, but I’m not the voice of all,” she said. “I know I’m the president, but I never want to be the smartest person in the room, and I honestly believe that I’m only as good as the people around me.”
Ekpe is intentional about bringing other graduate students into meetings with key stakeholders. “I want them to be there because they have a perspective that I don’t have,” she said. “Fortunately, I surrounded myself with a bunch of people that know a lot about their respective fields. Do you know how powerful that is?”