Amal and Cameron for SG

The Independent Collegian

Editorial – Why we like Amal and Cameron for SG WHY WE’RE GETTING BACK TOGETHER WITH SG
The Independent Collegian recently hosted a debate for Student Government. Going up against each other for the positions of president and vice president of SG, Ian Michalak and Dakota Ulrich versus Amal Mohamed and Cameron Forsythe.
While we moderated the debate impartially, we believe one group of candidates strongly stood out. This year, we’re casting our vote for Amal and Cameron because we believe they have both the passion for and the knowledge of the university and what it needs.
In the wake of President Sharon Gaber’s new diversity plan, diversity has become a hot button issue on campus, as we believe it should be. Diversity is one of the things that makes the University of Toledo so great, and Amal and Cameron have made this sentiment the key to their campaign. They said repeatedly that their focus is to increase student involvement in Student Government and also increase the types of students getting involved. They plan to reach out to all the student organizations, citing many multicultural orgs including the Black Student Union, the Students for Justice in Palestine and others. Amal also said she hoped to see a variety of students with different majors join SG, so that all different student perspectives can be voiced. We put diversity on campus as one of our main priorities and we think that a group which is as supposed to be important as SG should reflect the diversity of the whole university.
We also found that Amal and Cameron talked a lot during the debate about student and administration relationships. Amal vowed to stop SG from being “an administrative mouthpiece” and to shift the focus of the group back to the students and their experiences at UT. Having a student-centric campaign is a very important element to this race. The SG website states that one of their purposes is to “bridge the gap between students and university admins,” yet we have not noticed this in past year. Amal and Cameron have identified this as a problem they plan to address if they were to be elected, which we believe will be the key to getting SG back to the thriving and powerful student group that it was before.
It is also important to state that Amal and Cameron would balance each other out as president and vice president. Amal displayed a large amount of passion and desire for change during the debate. She was often the first to speak on matters such as campus safety and diversity. She often cited personal experiences as examples, exemplifying not only that she is constantly observing things that affect the student body, but that she has a personal desire to change them. Cameron, on the other hand, had a vast knowledge of the different workings at the university. Taking an almost technical approach, like the true engineering student that he is, he knew how and when things within the master plan were going to occur, as well as different administrative roles in different offices. These two very different personality types play off of each other’s strengths and if done correctly can be a very efficient team, as seen through Amal and Cameron.
Not only do we feel that these things put Amal and Cameron above their competition, but we also find some issue with their opponents. Ian and Dakota appeal to a small subset of people on campus. Though they possess a lot of needed experience, we believe they won’t be able to solve the problems SG faces.
In conclusion, we believe that Amal and Cameron are the right people for the job. Their combination of passion, experience, and technical knowledge is exactly what SG requires to make the changes needed for next year.