Stephanie Steiner | Arts & Life Co-Editor

Name: Ashley Lemke
Year: Sophomore
Major: Communication Studies
Campus Involvement: Student Senate, Student Activities Board (SAB), Alumni Association Student Board (AASB), BVU Choir
Hometown: Sibley, IA

“I don’t really know where my passion lies, but I just love people.”

Many people see Ashley Lemke as the outgoing person that she is, but what they may not know is she is actually quite shy underneath. Left-handed and an only child, she takes the world by storm by being her outgoing self even if it never came naturally to her at first. Despite her shy core, she has a gift for communicating with and appreciating people.

“I love every interaction I have with people. I love getting in front of people and talking, I feel comfortable doing that. I love getting to know people. It’s hard to find people that love people because people can be hard to deal with. I also love doing service. Every opportunity I have to do it, it’s so fulfilling to me. It makes me feel so fortunate for what I do have. Doing service for others makes me feel so good.”

Understanding that sometimes students don’t always get a voice on campus and as the Chair of Students Serving Students in Student Senate, which is mainly the social media aspect, Lemke gets to experiment with reaching students in different ways. She can get the word out and interact with others about Student Senate through social media. This has been a very fulfilling experience for her.

“There’s always a different way that people see the world.”

Lemke realizes the vast opportunities available at Buena Vista University and recently embarked on a journey that ended up being life-changing for her this past January.

“I went through the Panama Canal, and I visited four different countries over J-term. It was based on education, empowerment, and poverty. It was amazing. We went from California, and we did three stops in Mexico. It makes you really reflect on your own life and how good you’ve got it. I can’t express that enough. I wrote notes in my phone about what to do when I got back home. One of the things was: slow down and really think about what’s going on around you right now. It opens your eyes. We went through the Panama Canal and stopped in Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Columbia. Columbia was my absolute favorite. Columbia had these things called Stratus. They basically lived in dirt huts. The Sevens lived in the high end – they were the rich business owners that overlooked the city in their high skyscrapers. Instead of touring the higher-end touristy places, we were able to go to the places where the people were incredibly less fortunate and learn about the ways that they live their lives. One woman really touched me when we went to her house. She was involved in a program where they grow their own gardens and then the big corporations with the restaurants would come in and buy that and use that in their restaurants. That would be a business for them. She took us through a tour of her house, and she didn’t speak any English. Her house was nice for Stratus one or two, but it definitely wasn’t anything that we’d have here. She told us that she was truly happy where she was, and she just smiled, and she was so happy. I had to hold it in because later I cried. That’s something that I’ll always carry with me. I think travel is so important, and that’s why I’m so glad BV has travel. It made me think: what am I doing? I care about all these things that these people don’t even have.”

Photo by Stephanie Steiner
Featured Photo by Justice Gage