TU junior chairman of national Republican organization

Sheridan Nolan speaks about her recent appointment as Chairman of the Oklahoma Federation of College Republicans

TU junior Sheridan Nolan sat down with The Collegian to discuss her recent appointment to Chairman of the Oklahoma Federation of College Republicans. She is the first College Republican Chairman from the University of Tulsa.

“My first real political thing was my senior year of high school,” said Nolan. “I got interviewed on TV at a rally for Ted Cruz in the primaries.”

She’s been enamored with politics ever since. Upon arriving at the University of Tulsa in the fall of 2016, Nolan founded the university’s chapter of College Republicans.

Before becoming the president of her new chapter, Nolan was already promoting the organization during the summer leading up to her freshman year. Nolan attributes a large part of her exposure to local politics to the fact that she had the largest chapter of College Republicans in Oklahoma as a freshman beginning a first year chapter.

She certainly caught the attention of the former National College Republican Chairman Chandler Thornton, who saw all of the work Nolan was doing at such a young age and with such fervor, and knew that she would easily fit in on a larger political scale.

Nolan was inducted to her position this past July. Each executive position is elected across the state from different universities with active College Republicans chapters.

Nolan stated that within her first week on the job, she spearheaded the creation of a statewide funding effort and created a letter and contact sheet for donors with a specific outline of a preliminary budget.

She also explained that after the runoff election last Tuesday, it’s a bigger year for Republicans than ever.

With the teacher walkout, the local political parties have seen a huge shift in the types of individuals being elected.

“It’s kind of our job to un-muddy the waters, and we’re working really hard to make sure there is a happy medium between our education and who we elect,” Nolan explained.

Nolan attributes much of her success to her five board members, who she says she “couldn’t achieve anything without.”

Among her goals, Nolan hopes that she can aid Oklahoma College Republicans in becoming a strong delegation like other states. To achieve this, she’s been planning better agendas and hearing various fundraising suggestions. Nolan will hold her position until Spring of 2019, though she is already considering running again.

On a personal level, Sheridan has a dream of holding a federal or state candidate debate at the university. Nolan also expressed a desire to use her position to get more kids from Oklahoma to the national conferences. Sheridan was fortunate enough to go to the conference, but she understands that it’s not always an option for people, and she believes it should be accessible to more students, especially from Oklahoma.

Nolan’s extracurriculars probably don’t look like most students’. This June, Sheridan got access to the state of Virginia’s Republican Party information and phone banked from Tulsa to remind individuals to go out and vote. Furthermore, when working for an attorney general candidate in the primary, she knocked on 611 doors a week. When she interned for mayor G.T. Bynum, she got to conduct research for state question 788 and look into how it will affect city zoning laws and planning.

As a political science and French double major, Sheridan was afforded the rare opportunity to seamlessly combine both of her areas of study on an academic excursion this past summer to France where she studied European Union Law. Nolan explained that she ran into the former French President, Francois Hollande, at the largest bookstore in Europe. She hopes that after she completes her undergraduate degrees that she can go on to earn a Masters in public administration or law.

Post Author: Tori Gellman