Bio
Hello there! My name is Axel Kylander and I’ve been a lot of things, done a lot of things, and lived in a lot of places.
This year, I’ve had the pleasure and honor to serve as the president of my campus’s Senate, as well as the Platform Committee Student-at-Large, Diversity Committee Vice Chair, and Steering Committee member. The work of Senate and LeadMN has been my greatest joy since I started doing it last year. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and can’t believe my luck to already be doing, at 21, some form of what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.
When I’m not at meetings, reading, writing, or researching, I’m usually hanging out with friends, running around thrift stores, or chilling in the office listening to Spotify. When I get home, I swap my suit jacket for a cardigan, Mr. Rogers style, make myself a cup of earl grey, and catch up on homework or poke around on that book I’m still writing. I was a published writer before I ever got involved in the world outside my house, and I don’t think I’ll ever completely set down my pen.
1. What degree or certificate program are you seeking?
I’m currently pursuing an AA in Communications Studies, and I also have an AFA in Creative Writing. While still working on my AA, I’m also going to be starting a BA in Political Science part-time at Mankato State in the fall.
2. What are your future career plans?
When I was thirteen, my dentist asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said “something that will make me a lot of money.” The dentist’s counterpoint was this – “I wake up every morning, and I’m excited to go to work, because I love what I do.”
The work we’re doing right now is what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. If I can work in policy and advocacy, and work for a non-profit fighting for a cause I can believe in, I will wake up every morning happy.
3. Please describe your previous student government or professional experience, and how it has prepared you for this position.
Over the past two years, I’ve held numerous positions in student government, each playing an important role in leading me to now, from Phi Theta Kappa Regional Officer to Minnesota State Policy Council member. Serving as the Cambridge Student Senate President this year has been a hugely impactful experience for me. I’ve had to grow into being an encouraging, assertive, effective leader, and I am so proud of what our team has accomplished this year, including the institution of student-led mental health forums to fight stigma, partnership with our Gender-Sexuality Alliance to fight for the protection of LGBTQ+ students at our college, and successfully advocating for expanded basic needs efforts on campus.
In my service on the Platform Committee, I’ve been able to get very well acquainted with the policy and advocacy end of LeadMN, and I’ve discovered it’s my favorite thing to do. It is my responsibility to represent the underrepresented in the 180,000 students we fight for, and I have done my best to be their voice and advocate on the Platform Committee. From the start of my term, I devoted myself to research on issues ranging from basic needs to affordability to academic equity through the lens of how these issues impact groups such as students of color, LGBTQ+ students, international students, and students with disabilities, as well as the nuances to finding solutions that equitably serve all students. This has included attending many workshops, research online and reading studies, and speaking one-on-one with students of many perspectives around the state. In the 16 platform document recommendations that came to the floor at the October GA this year, 5 were formed as a result of my research and recommendations on how to better serve underrepresented students, particularly at the local level.
4. Why are you running for this position?
I’ve been a lot of things in student leadership. Senator, president, representative, committee member, chairman, council member. In all that, the best application of my head and heart has been the work of policy and advocacy. I love talking with my peers, hearing what they struggle with, what they need to have changed in our system of higher education. I love researching and digging deep on problems and solutions. I love sitting with other student leaders and hashing out the exact, optimum language for expressing a position for LeadMN to take or to push for on our legislative agenda. I love looking legislators in the eye, and speaking from my heart on why they should support the changes we believe in.
Through LeadMN, I have found my voice. I think this would be the best way for me to use it. I’ve held a lot of positions, in a lot of different areas of our work. But I feel I would serve 180,000 of my peers best next year not by being a hammer, striking all manner of nails, but as a scalpel, surgically focused on leading in what I am most experienced in, and most skilled at doing.
5. What challenges do you see facing Minnesota's community and technical college students?
High costs loom large as a root cause to many other issues. To have any social and economic mobility, we have to navigate the extreme cost of college in conjunction with all the other expenses of living. We are the future of this state, yet we shoulder a terrible burden to maintain the path forward, a path that, as things stand, is crumbling under the weight of its failings.
In a year of representing the underrepresented, I’ve seen immense equity gaps in how students are treated. From lack of resources for international students to erasure of trans students, the status quo is not serving any of us. It is a critical time in the fight for equity and inclusion, as the system office is rolling out its goal of Equity 2030. It is incumbent on us as the leaders and servants of 180,000 students to take up this fight and serve our role in shifting the culture of our campuses to one of inclusion and justice for all students.
We also face a crisis of unmet basic needs. LeadMN has done amazing work on the front of food insecurity, but there is more work still to do. Mental health struggles and inadequate resources are also rampant. My own experience with this almost killed me, and I will never stop advocating for measures to extinguish stigma and expand resources. Many of us struggle with transportation and housing insecurity, and these are issues I intend to highlight more in the coming year. As someone who has suffered from issues with mental health, transportation, and housing, I know that once those fundamentals are threatened, it’s hard to ever shake the pain and anxiety that comes with it. I want to help lead the charge to making sure no student feels that way again.