Vladimir J. Carrasco and Adeel Ahmed are the president and vice president candidates for the RUSA fall 2017 elections, running on the Knights for Change ticket. Learn more about Vlad and Adeel, their ideas, and what they want to offer to Rutgers. Voting starts March 22!
1. How and why did you get involved in RUSA?
Vladimir Carrasco: For as long as I can remember, I have always loved to give back. That comes from being raised in a family that has taught me the value of helping others. I was involved in student government all throughout high school and it just made sense to get involved in college. I thought it would be the perfect place to advocate for change for issues that really matter. I joined RUSA in my freshman year and have advocated for many issues, such as the tough conversation about sexual violence. I always knew that to accomplish great change we must all work together, so I have worked to create unity in student organizations to better represent students.
Adeel Ahmed: I have always wanted to get involved with student government since senior year of high school, a time in which I held the position of student council treasurer. But what really drove me was my passion to enact change and ability to get others to stand up, that really happened for me last year when Bernie Sanders ran for president. He changed me and made me realize that true power is vested within the people, which is what RUSA needs now more than ever–the power of the students. During the spring of my first semester, I got involved in RUSA and Nivedh Rajesh (at the time, the treasurer of RUSA and presidential candidate) invited me to run on his ticket Scarlet Knights for You (SKY). That election changed my life, leading me to get involved with the Rutgers Commuter Student Association (RCSA) where I then became the RUSA Rep. of RCSA.
2. Why did you decide to run together for these major positions?
VC: Adeel and I share in this vision of unity and change. We both have witnessed a lack of true advocacy in RUSA which is what we seek to change. We decided to team up together to take back the student government for the students. Student gov shouldn’t be a place to pad your resume but a place for where different students can come together to challenge the status quo, to fight injustice, and to grow to be inclusive of our diversity.
AA: I am beyond excited that I am running as Vice President alongside Vlad. Originally when I entered RUSA I thought of myself as just to be a member, but then in the Fall 2016 election I created a ticket “RU Progressive”, a team of 12 people fighting for a vision of student unity and advocacy. After 75% of my ticket won, I realized that it was no longer about me being just a member of RUSA anymore, it’s about me being a leader and having people looking up to me. Although that was the thought provoker, it wasn’t the spark. The spark was when RUSA was voting on the Constitution change and made an amendment taking away voting rights of special population orgs like RCSA, RHA, Asian Student Council, ROTC, etc. I organized over 30 voting RUSA members with Vlad to combat this ridiculous amendment and we won. That is when I had decided that enough is enough, RUSA needs a revolutionary change, it needs to be a student government that not only represents the students but also stands with the students. So, alongside Vlad, I hope to ultimately change RUSA.
3. What parts of your agenda are you most excited about?
VC: I’m most excited to shift RUSA from a bureaucratic machine, that is disconnected from the student body, to a hub of student advocacy! We will put students in the center of student government, and we’ll do so by creating collaborations with other students orgs which I have done in my time in RUSA with organizations such as RHA and Rutgers NO MORE. I’m also excited to advocate for college affordability, fight stigmas on mental health, and push towards an end to sexual violence, which we can do with the aid of members running with us who are from SCREAM Theater and Rutgers NO MORE.
AA: I’m most focused on creating unity. One of things I am mostly looking forward to as Vice President is the foundation of the Union of Rutgers Student Government Associations (URSGA). This will be a connected network between the Student Government Associations of each Rutgers campus meaning New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden. This is a more efficient network as eboard members of each campus will be able to exchange ideas and prove to serve as a much stronger universal student voice. We of course have the University Senate, but that is too bureaucratic, what we need is a straight forward network where presidents of each campus can straightforwardly discuss major issues such as College Affordability, the Board of Governors bill, sexual assault, sustainability, mental health stigma, etc. Particularly on the Rutgers New Brunswick campus, we need more student unity; we need more student inclusion for RUSA, and the most efficient way of doing that is by involving organizations within the RUSA circle. For the environmental aspect–two members running with us, Dan Chulak and Nick Quinn, actually founded the Rutgers Student Environmental Coalition–a coalition of all the major environmental orgs in Rutgers, even the RUSA Sustainability Task Force is in it. We need more of these. We need to be able to sit down in the same table with Rutgers One- the largest student organizing coalition at Rutgers, and be able to discuss what we can do on our end.
4. What have you two been involved in or with at Rutgers?
VC: I have been Director of University Relations in RHA, ambassador for the Targum, brother of Phi Alpha Delta, eboard member of Circle K, and now Senator with RUSA.
AA: Freshman year, I was Media Director of Rutgers for Bernie. I am the Vice President and acting Co-President of RU Progressive, the RUSA Rep of Rutgers Commuter Student Association (RCSA), the Off Campus Caucus Chair of RUSA, member of the Ahlul-Bayt Student Association (ABSA, member of the Muslim Public Relations Council, and member of Rutgers One. I was also one of the primary organizers and speakers of the Rutgers No Ban No Wall March that had a turnout of over 1000 students.
5. What are your plans if elected?
VC: Our plans, if elected, is described in our platform. Focus on uniting the student body to end sexual violence, fight stigmas on mental health, and advocate for college affordability.
AA: As vice president, I will look to two things immediately. One is the foundation of URSGA, which I hope to be working closely on with Vlad. The other is strong internal changes by making sure each committee chair within RUSA seeks to include other organizations within their committees for more student inclusions. I also believe in promoting RUSA meetings, especially ones with committee meetings, more to the student body and rather than just to RUSA voting reps.
6. What makes your ticket different from the others?
VC: Our ticket is different because a majority of us are outsiders from RUSA. We have student leaders from a myriad of different student organizations that will take the lead on specific issues that that have worked outside of RUSA with organizations such as SCREAM Theatre and Rutgers One. Another aspect that makes us different is our diversity, with 90% of us who identify as member of a protected group or minority ethnic group, as well as the majority of female candidates present on our ticket. We will address the issues while being aware of the intersectionality of our student body.
AA: One simple thing- that is our vision of student unity. We are not the old fashioned RUSA establishment, we aren’t people who smile with administrators at fancy dinners and call it progress. We are a team of outsiders directly from the student body because we understand the change RUSA needs. We understand that the current RUSA is failing to represent us successfully because of the great load of bureaucracy and unwillingness to take a stance. RUSA should not be simply advocating for more student transparency on the selection of the new VPVA director, it should be demanding while proudly organizing with many others like Rutgers One and Rutgers No More and make sure it is so. We are the most diverse ticket, a ticket of 90% minorities and majority female, we understand the importance of diversity as it is what makes Rutgers powerful at its most. When I organized the march with others, it was successful in getting Barchi to sign the letter against Trump’s travel ban not because there were just Muslims there, but because everyone–black, latino, asian, white, LGBTQ, etc all stood in solidarity. Solidarity is the most powerful strength a student body can have and that is what our ticket is based on.
7. Why should the students of Rutgers vote for your ticket?
VC: Students should vote for change. They should take note and ask themselves what RUSA has done for them in the past year. With that in mind they should vote for a team of change makers that is Knights for Change – KFC.
AA: Students themselves should look at what RUSA has done. Of course, we have done great things like making the Cupanion reusable bottles, but it is about going to the next level. Last year, our voter turnout for RUSA elections was around 11.5%, such a sad turnout was actually our highest voter turnout. This should not be the case; the lack of turnout is due to most students not really caring about RUSA, as they see it as an organization full of resume builders. And RUSA itself isn’t really doing much for turnout either. The biggest possible thing RUSA needs is not the repetitive status quo, but rather a fresh team of outsiders willing to challenge the unusual, willing to challenge things the usual RUSA bureaucracy would not allow us to do, like openly discussing with organizations and being willing to take strong stances. After all that is the definition of Revolutionary, that’s what makes us a movement, and why Rutgers students should join us.
8. Is there anything else you want them to know?
Find out more about our platform on our website, http://knightsforchange.com
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