Colton Becker and Mehraz Rahman, student body president and vice–president candidates, hope to empower students to better campus life and themselves.
Although they believe they may not accomplish everything in one year, Becker and Rahman said all of their ideas are within reach and they would be able to get the ball rolling on several initiatives.
As part of their platform, some of the things the two plan to do include expanding legal aid to DACA students, developing a smartphone app to request SURE Walk rides and creating more reflection spaces on campus for Muslim students to pray. They also want to help LGBTQIA+ students, improve mental health policies, create a new gym and extend fall break by two days.
Becker, a nutrition senior, said their platform centers on tangible solutions that can be completed.
“The biggest reason why I’m running for student body president is because I want to work on initiatives that can continue improving the quality of life for students and to make the opportunities that Student Government confers upon for students more accessible,” Becker said.
Becker said he learned the ins and outs of SG when he was the communications director under Kevin Helgren and Binna Kim, student body president and vice president for the 2016-17 year. Helgren and Kim’s close friendship and good working relationships made a more positive SG culture, Becker said, so he hopes to have the same dynamic between himself and his running mate, Rahman.
Rahman, a current officer for SG’s Diversity and Inclusion Agency, said she first became involved with SG last year while working on student body president and vice president Alejandrina Guzman and Micky Wolf’s campaign team.
“I really love this University and what it’s given me, and I saw a lot of potential in what it can give to other people,” said Rahman, a marketing and Plan II junior. “There’s also a lot of potential to create new resources for students and empower students to create their own.”
With a campaign motto of “Let’s get started,” Becker said their platform is mainly centered around empowerment.
“We believe that students should have ownership of their own ideas,” Becker said. “I’m really passionate about health and wellness, and Mehraz is really passionate about mental health, so we developed those platforms ideas and other students (from a focus group) developed some of the other platform ideas.”
