Meet your SGA: Business Senator and Vice Chairman

Photo courtesy of SGA. 

Stephanie Piedrahita/Contributing Writer

The last time we got to sit down with a member of Student Government Association, we spoke to Luis Cabrera, our Student Advancement Coordinator, about his position and other involvements on campus. This time, FIUSM got in contact with Stefan Bahad, a sophomore completing a double major in International Business and Finance. Here is how our interview went:

What position do you hold within student government and what are your duties?

I am currently the Business Senator for College of Business and also Vice Chairman of the Operational Review Committee. As the Business Senator, I advocate for the College of Business and whatever the needs of the students are. Like last Semester, we did a LinkedIn lab as well as a lecture on social media done by Nancy Richmond who is director of Career Services over there. This semester we’re looking forward to hopefully getting charging stations in the College of Business, we’ve seen them here in the Graham Center and think it would be of great use to us as well.

As Vice Chairman of the Operational Review Committee, I help audit organizations that receive money from student government. The Student Government Association has a seventeen million dollar budget and they allocate money to all these different organizations so we just make sure that money is being used appropriately and effectively.

What was your platform when you first ran?

My platform was to get effective events out to the students in the College of Business. I thought that students really need to get engaged in on-campus organizations specifically to help them land a job after graduation. So the way I’ve gone about this is by hosting a variety of events and partnering with different organizations like Alpha Kappa Psi, Beta Gamma Sigma and Toastmasters and letting them know so we get greater involvement from them. Through these events, you could improve your public speaking skills and professionalism which was a huge part of my platform when I first ran. Right now, I’m running for Speaker Pro Tempore and I’m very excited to become even more involved within student government.

What new duties would you have if you get Speaker Pro Tempore?

As Speaker Pro Tempore, I would sit on the University-Wide Council, the University-Wide Budget Committee, and the Executive Board of the Student Government at Modesto A. Maidique. I would help prepare and set a budget with the rest of the University-Wide Council of over 15 million dollars to disperse to organizations, agencies, and bureaus that receive funds from Student Government. I would also be the right hand man of the Senate Speaker, Nicholas Aquart. This means that any help he would need in running and maintaining a Senate of 32 members as a whole. Helping overlook 5 Standing Senate Committees and maintaining a sense of accountability to all Senators. I would also serve as the direct liaison between the SGA-MMC and SGA-BBC Senate.

What does it take to be a leader and why are students the best kinds of leaders?

A leader is someone who leads, not just someone with a position of power. So I think there’s a large gap between that. I don’t think that holding a position means that you’re a leader but instead getting effective results and making sure they are going towards a common purpose which you can band together with others and insure we are doing purposeful things makes a leader.  Students are the best kind of leaders since they are full of innovative ideas. We’re at a young age. We’re eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old with all these fresh ideas and through networking we can make these ideas comes to life which can help our student body move forward.

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