For the new student body president and vice president, Zainab Naaz and Fatima Malik, leading with kindness is necessary when representing students’ voices.

“At the core of me, I think being simple and kind takes you a long way,” Naaz said. “And politeness does not come easily, trust me, but it’s really important to have it within you, so that people can come up to you, and if they’re having a bad day, you can just smile and talk to them and make them feel lighter.”

Being involved in Residence Life, New Student Orientation and different Registered Student Organizations (RSO), Naaz and Malik said they’ve noticed changes that need to be made on campus. During their term, they plan to focus on improving dining halls, career fairs and starting an emergency tuition fund.

“At the end of the day, Zainab and I go to the same school as you guys, we have the same problems that you guys experience,” Malik said.

After they were elected, Central Michigan Life sat down with them to hear more about their goals for next year.

CM Life: What are your plans for students on campus, and how will you implement them?

Malik: Topmost thing that we talked about to death in our campaign was the fact that we wanted to start an emergency tuition fund, because I feel like sometimes life happens, and you just can’t pay the tuition, period. And we’re also planning on applying for Go Grants for that tuition fund.

(Former student body president) Akua [Acheampong] made a scholarship for everyone. We also want to continue that, because those are valuable things that actually make a difference in those students’ lives with resources and money.

Just to be able to go to school is very, very important, and a lot of people just choose Central because it’s cheaper than other schools. And if we can help them actually go to school and have that semester for free, then why not?

Some other things that we also face, and I think are a big challenge, (are) dining halls. I feel like there is no concrete procedure around that for right now, just because it’s a private entity, and they have an agreement with the school. So, they operate a certain way, and they’re not under Central technically, because they’re just a partner to us.

I think having more options, especially for different people that have different needs, for example, like gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian. You cannot just expect vegetarian, vegan people to just go and eat at the salad bar every single day. There has to be much more than that. Or just have roasted broccoli every single day, because that’s not fair to them. They give the equal amount of tuition and room and board money as the other person, (who) is not vegetarian. So, I feel like those are the things that we would love to focus on.

How do you plan to use your connections as student leaders to improve the quality of life on campus?

Naaz: Many of the career fairs and stuff that we have on campus that happen every semester are not very helpful sometimes to all majors, I would say. And I also worked in Student Success and Advising for two and a half years, and have really good relationships with the Career Development Center. Anna Flanders (assistant director of the Career Development Center) up there is somebody I know really well, and she generally hosts those career fairs. So, I wanted to, generally, meet with her over the summer and maybe just see the better companies we could reach out to, and maybe have them (career fairs) be accessible to all majors.

We have to cater to the student body. We are coming here to study, to graduate and to work in the future and get a job. That’s the primary goal for anybody who comes to college. So, to cater to that need is very important.

This is temporary here. Our long-term goal is to get a job and build a life for ourselves, so making sure that most students feel welcome in that space and have those opportunities presented to them, regardless of the major, is also something very important.

How would you bring more people to the SGA and make more students aware of what it is?

Naaz: I feel like connecting with RSOs is how you reach a majority of the student body on campus, because RSOs are like small groups of many students, and multiple of them are around. It doesn’t matter; you do not have to be a professional RSO for us to come. You can be like the Taylor Swift one. I thoroughly enjoyed going to that one. And there (are) like 50 of us (students) that showed up to one of their events.

So, just going to those main events, talking about what SGA is, talking about SBAC (the Student Budget Allocation Committee). SBAC is a big part of SGA. We have money that we can give you so that you can go to conferences, you can host an event, you can host a professional development, whatever. Just build your career and life on campus to be better for tomorrow.

How will you both lead the next SGA cabinet and leaders?

Malik: I would like to cater to more personalized individuals in the cabinet, as opposed to saying that, ‘Oh, this is how we’re going to run it, and that’s how it’s going to be,’ irrespective of who applies. Like how in families, if you have four kids, all four kids are different, and everyone has different needs, even though they grow up in the same household.

I’m a firm believer of the fact that whoever makes up your community is the one that decides how they want to run everything. So, ideally, when we start our cabinet and orientation and whatnot, I would want to know what everyone’s priorities are and what they’re looking for because every relationship is more so an exchange. I give something, and you give something, and we make the place better that way.

This summer, Naaz said she and Malik will focus on planning and forming their cabinet so they can put these plans into action once the academic year starts.