Senator of the College of Arts and Sciences Candidate

Q: What is your platform?

A: “Basically, what I am looking forward to do is concentrate on the environmental situation. I am really passionate about working to do something that makes a difference in the environment. The College of Arts and Sciences happens to be one of the biggest colleges out of the ten colleges that we have on the university with more than fourteen departments. I really believe that the issue such as the environment can be best tackled by us, concentrating the number of students we have and the majors also that are related to the environment. We as a college can contribute to actually make it happen with implementing the idea and instituting it. My plan is to improve the environment first through improving the green practices at the university. Right now, our recycle rate is 36 percent in the university where there are other universities who are recycling at 48 percent to 56 percent. We are unable to do that because a lot of students do not separate their trash in spite of Kent State providing bins for it. There are a lot of facts that students don’t know about recycling like glass can be recycled about a million times. Some of us drink Starbucks in the same glass and then we throw the glass bottle in the trash can instead of putting it into the recycle. So, there are a couple of things to improve the green practices in the university. The basis to do this would be organizing a committee which would include people we have in departments from the College of Arts and Sciences. So I would have a representative from each of these departments and then we would come up with different solutions to improve the green practices. My second thing I wish to focus on is coming and talking to people from the sustainability department on how we can come up with a sustainable curricular. I understand that we already have majors related to the environment but when I say sustainable curricular, it does not mean changing the courses or introducing anything new. It basically means that we have more trips that are focused towards the environment, like small trips like going to the Cuyahoga River and we also have the cleanup that happens but the attendance has been very low. A lot of these cleanups are organized in the winter and they happen to be canceled most of the time instead of doing it over summer. Having a lot of people come in during summer and doing something for the environment would be great and having a committee that functions throughout there including summer. My last agenda is to do something for recycling paper. I have been looking for a department for people to specifically recycle paper because a lot of times we use so much paper during our time here at Kent State. We are constantly printing stuff and doing this and that. Where do you put that paper? Most of the time it’s going in the trash and it’s not getting recycled. Paper also can be recycled in different ways. I plan to do something about that with the help of the committee that would be focusing on green practices.”

Q: Why should people vote for you?

A: “Referring to my platform again, that right now a lot of people are focusing on mental health and I do not mean to say that it’s not important but I understand that USG has been constantly working on doing something with different types of mental health initiatives. Chanelle Waligura who is the Director of Student Advancement has come up with an initiative. I believe that somebody will always be taking an initiative about mental health on increasing spending for different things but the environment is one issue that I haven’t seen enough from USG in a very long time. Even though we have a senator for sustainability, there has been no work from USG towards the environment. I believe having me on there who has specifically three separate goals all geared towards helping the environment is a great thing. I would suggest that if somebody wants to see a difference in bringing about a positive change and doing something for the environment, that is why I would say if that’s something you believe in, vote for me.”

Q: What changes are you looking to enact?

A: “The changes include improving green practices in the university considering our recycling rates. The other one was coming up with a sustainable curricular in terms of field trips rather than the courses because I believe changing the courses is something the university takes care of very well within those specific majors. Then the third one is coming up with better ways to recycle paper considering the amount of paper we generate every single day and every single semester.”