Jon Fisher/Collegian
18-year-old Hillsdale Mayor Michael Sessions presides over a city council meeting Monday evening.
Hillsdale Mayor Michael Sessions awoke Monday at 5 a.m.; this day would be very busy. Not only did he have to juggle school with his normal workload, but he also had to fit in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, as well as make final preparations for the 7 p.m. city council meeting.
Sessions calls his work a part-time job, though it requires much more than sitting at a desk. On average, he works 20 hours a week, many of which include presiding over various meetings, dinners, appointing city officials and attending community events to remain visible and accessible to the community.
“It can be nerve-wracking sometimes, but I enjoy it,” Sessions said.
His main duty is to preside over city council meetings.
“Mayor Sessions seems to have a good command of the meeting,” said Rich Péwé, council member for Ward 2, and vice president of administration for the college. “He has good respect of the council; everyone treats him well, and [he] is a good mayor.”
Wearing a blue dress shirt and tie and a ready but reserved smile, his hair short and slick, Sessions doesn’t look his age, 18, although he does express a youthful, yet mature optimism that may have helped him win the election.
“I talked to people about him and everything I heard was positive,” Shirley Van Arsdalen, a Hillsdale resident who voted for him, said. “He was very positive when we came out to meet him and was very mature. So I thought, ‘let’s give him a chance.’”
As a teenage mayor, Sessions became national news soon after his election, appearing everywhere from “The Tonight Show” with David Letterman to the online encyclopedia wikipedia.org.
Yet fame doesn’t seem to puff his head, except with the occasional headache. Rather, Sessions sees it as a way to promote his city.
“People seem to know the city of Hillsdale for two reasons now,” he said. “Short term, it hasn’t [changed the city], but long term, we’ll see.”
Though still in the early stages as mayor, he has already initiated a public service announcement campaign. It is a way to boost public safety and awareness. Now the city radio channels relay the fire and police chief’s contact information, boast of the public library and announce local events.
Van Arsdalen said she and most people she has spoken to about Sessions’s job as mayor seem to think he’s doing well at it.
Péwé agreed.
“It seems to me that he’s trying to push the right things,” he said. “What I like is he pushes forward the arts and the culture and things that really help charge the community.”
Before becoming mayor, Sessions played football and ran track and cross-country. Now, while his classmates are practicing for football and running track, Sessions tackles city questions.
Though Sessions says he lacks a social life, it doesn’t bother him.
“I have always been pretty independent,” he said. “I can occupy myself at home rather than going out with friends.”
Sessions said that being the mayor hasn’t changed the atmosphere that surrounds him while at school with his classmates.
“It’s not a distraction for them, and it’s not a distraction for me,” he said.
After high school, Sessions intends to enroll at Hillsdale College to pursue a political science degree.
Sessions said he isn’t sure what he will do when his four-year term as mayor ends.