Sarah Mohamed, a fourth-year Health Studies, Psychology, and City Studies student, is running for Vice-President Campus Life under the Shine Bright UTSC slate.
Mohamed said that she has wanted to fill the role ever since her first year at UTSC, and now that the position is elected, “there’s nothing going to stop me from running.”
As part of her portfolio, Mohamed wants to hire two orientation co-coordinators this year, rather than one senior and one junior leader.
“I want to hire two co-coordinators that do the work equally and actually manage the team together rather than one doing everything, the next person just being their assistant,” Mohamed said, recalling her experience as a junior coordinator, when she felt that there wasn’t much to the role.
Mohamed is also campaigning on moving some parts of orientation to inside the new Exam Centre, so that attendees won’t tire from being under the sun.
She also wants to improve food options during orientation. “I want to make sure that food is better this year,” she said. “I’m going to try to make sure that the places that we reach out to are places that students actually want to pick from.” For example, instead of having pizza for all three days, she would try to find variety by asking students for their preferences via Google Form.
On the SCSU’s current clubs funding model, Mohamed said that there was a lot of confusion from students. “I had trouble understanding how [the] SCSU’s funding worked for clubs because they didn’t really have an individual who is relaying that information,” she said. “Yes, they have [the Vice-President] Campus Life who is responsible for funding and everything, but there wasn’t really any workshops.” She said that she would create a tip sheet on how clubs can get funding and potentially reach out to first-year students to explain the process.
— With files from Josie Kao
