In March of 2025, Ryan Bates was elected Vice President of the Spelman College Student Government Association for the 2025-2026 school year, the culmination of four well-spent years of hard work and advocacy. These years have seen Bates’ work impact students, and reach out beyond Spelman’s gates, across multiple regions, and touch countless people.
Ryan’s journey to Spelman College started unlike many others. Met with the looming decision of where she would spend her next four academic years, her options shifted when in her senior year of high school she was diagnosed with a pseudotumor in her brain.
“God really stepped in because the best doctor for my condition was at Emory, so I didn’t really have a choice but to go to Spelman at that point,” Bates stated. “And I was like, well, I’m going to make it work.”
Now rounding out her junior year at Spelman, the work couldn’t be clearer. Bates has served with SSGA since she interned for the Eminent 81st Administration her freshman year. She’s worked to eliminate risks and dangers toward students as the Director of Compliance and Safety, and has orchestrated textbook exchange programs to lessen the financial needs of students as the current Secretary of Institutional Research Planning and Effectiveness.
“I’ve had a great time with my run, we’ve done a lot of change and I know the 84th will bring a lot of change as well,” Bates stated. “And so I’m just excited to implement all the things that I’ve been wanting for Spelman into my vice presidency.”
When asked about her style and views on leadership, both on Spelman’s campus and off, Bates stressed the necessity of unity.
“So one thing that I know about civil rights is that the way African-Americans advanced was because we moved together in unity,” she stated.
“The problem with America now is that people are moving solo,” Bates said. “If you’re moving solo, you don’t have the support of your sister to guide you and help you. And when those times get rough, you need that support.”
These driving forces of unity in advocacy are prevalent in the work she has done not just at Spelman, but nationwide. She serves as the State President of the NAACP Youth and College Division in her home state of New Jersey, and cites this as the push that has built her passion for politics.
“We’re living in our grandmother’s years and so, you know, being a modern day civil rights activist is something that I love,” she stated.
“I think that NAACP built such a strong connection to politics for me before I even touched the Hill.”
In January 2024, the New Jersey NAACP saw legislation passed that lowered the voting age for school board elections to 16, giving current students the opportunity to participate in the decision about their leadership. There are now four cities in New Jersey that have adopted this legislation, and Bates has gotten to see firsthand the student voters who are now given a voice.
“It’s just been so effective,” she said. “I think it’s important for students to vote in those elections because the impact and the decisions they make directly affect them.”
Bates has also worked in both state and federal legislatures, in the Georgia General Assembly for Representative Rhonda Taylor, and on Capitol Hill in the office of Representative Lucy McBath. Bates cites her time on the Hill in McBath’s office and a transformative learning experience.
“She embodies the theme that faith without work is dead.”
Through this work, she has been able advocate for feeding programs and food bank investments in the state of Georgia, and consult and collaborate with fellow CBCF interns on what the future of black America looks like, and the necessity of, as she puts it, advancing America together.
Over all, Bates names her faith as the guiding force that has driven her
“Matthew 19:26, with God all things are possible. That is my favorite verse,” Bates said. “It came to me at the hardest time in my life, when I got diagnosed with that pseudotumor. When you keep living that verse through your life, you see that things work out for you. That faith is there.”
Ready to step into her term as SSGA Vice President during her final year within the gates, Bates has big plans for the upcoming year of programming. Her primary goal, however, is to spark a reaction that will reach into the coming years.
“I would really like to grow the next generation,” Bates stated. “That’s something that I’m super passionate about growing the next generation in the coming year.”
“My time is dwindling down, as sad as it is. It is dwindling down and I can’t be here forever to make change. I can’t be here for everybody. What I can do is teach the next generation how to continue what we’ve built.”
This reaction, Bates hopes, will build the next generation of not just leaders, but sisters as well.
“I have a lot of things that I want to bring to Spelman, but what I do want to leave is a mark that Ryan was a sister. And that she helped grow us into who she was because someone grew me into who I am.”
