The Voice editorial board, which has interviewed all the candidates running for GUSA President and Vice President, endorsed Jeff Lamb and Molly Breen for GUSA Prez and VP this week. But don’t take our word for it! Vox wants you to make a (more or less) informed decision when roughly a fourth of you decide to vote in this year’s GUSA election!

We’ve sent surveys to all eight presidential candidates and will post them as we receive them. Below, Peter Dagher explains why he and VP candidate Elais Ibrahim deserve to be elected as top execs.
What are three things you’d try to accomplish as GUSA execs?

The top three goals for our administration center on the desire to make life cheaper and safer for students while also improving interaction with career advisors.

• To help students save some extra money each semester we’re looking to initiate a legacy book sharing program. By working with the registrar we hope to create a link between current and future students taking the same course which would allow them to come together and pass down books for a nominal fee. Why sell books back for pennies at the cafeteria or the white van at the library when students could be helping other students.

• In regards to safety, we are advocating the importance of improving Safe Rides. Already under investigation by Dowd’s administration, this is a crucial issue facing Georgetown students, considering the high rate of public safety alerts issued every month.

• Our final goal, which has become clear to most students during their junior year, is increasing the dialogue between administration and students about career opportunities and potential employment. Many students end up picking their Academic advisor for their major and never go back to them for advice – we would like to encourage this interaction which is so important, given difficulties finding jobs and figuring out what to do post-Georgetown.

What qualifies you to be GUSA’s next President and Vice President, keeping in mind that how you’d look as an odometer is fair game.

Elias and I both come from a very diverse background and owe so much to Georgetown that we’d like to give a little back and try to make things better for students – the one thing that really makes Georgetown special. A dual citizen myself, I’ve been amazed at all the different backgrounds of my friends here at Georgetown and I think it’s amazing how well everyone gets along together. I expanded my horizons this past semester while studying in Tokyo for the semester – an opportunity not many schools offer, while Elias worked on perfecting a third language while living abroad in Spain. Georgetown really has something for everyone, no matter what interests you. Now it’s our chance to try and expand upon that.

If GUSA had unbridled control of all things Georgetown, what’s the first thing you would change?

Well if we could do anything right away, a simple yet effective change would be getting buses running directly from campus to the Verizon Center. A policy that had been in place up till a few years ago, it’s puzzling why getting to games is so difficult considering the heightened popularity the basketball team has been enjoying since JT III started taking over. Even if you have to charge a few dollars to pay for the longer route, it would be no different for students who end up having to pay for the metro ride back and forth.

How would you characterize Dowd’s time in office?

Despite the popular opinion that GUSA typically does nothing, if you look at what Pat’s done in office I think students will be pleasantly surprised. The GUSA Summer Fellows program which provides free housing for students receiving unpaid internships in DC for the summer is a monumental achievement and something we hope to grow further. Additionally, Pat has been tirelessly involved with the administration attending meetings and lobbying hard for the student body. We respect what Pat has accomplished and hope people come to realize the importance of GUSA more and more.

How do you feel about the findings of the SCUnity report and GUSA’s reaction to their recommendations?

We believe that the SCUnity group has been a little overzealous in their attempts to expand diversity requirements on-campus. After visiting other universities in the United States, it becomes immediately clear that Georgetown is very progressive when compared to other schools on the national level. Diversity is a positive feature of the university already, why focus on a strength when there are more pressing issues at hand?

Do you support SAC’s decision to write GUSA out of its constitution?

While it’s unfortunate that SAC has written GUSA out of their election process, we don’t see this as a major problem facing GUSA. We are look forward to working closely with SAC and if they would prefer a greater amount of autonomy, there would be no objection on our part as long as they continue to pursue a cordial working relationship with the GUSA administration.

Photo from Peter Dagher

Other GUSA surveys:

Cory Perkins makes his case

George “Brock” Magruder wants to be your man

Calen Angert angling for your love

Lamb and Breen, the couple who should be endorsed

This entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under News, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.