The Senator Interviews: Part 2
April 17th, 2024 | Isaac Burge, Editor
In our second article covering Senator At-Large candidates, The Prestige editor Isaac interviews Manar Ahmed, a first year Human Biology major. She was originally born in Canada to Bangladeshi immigrant parents, moved to the Bay Area when she was young, and then moved to Clovis, a city in Fresno County. She came to UC Merced because of its location in the Central Valley and her scholarship as part of the Health Scholars Program. "My dream is to become a pediatrician and stay in the San Joaquin Valley to practice here,” she says. “I am very big on the San Joaquin Valley and its health disparities, and so I want to be able to contribute to this community."
Q: What leadership experience do you have in other organizations around UC Merced?
A: Manar Ahmed is a marketing intern at the Health Promotion, where her role primarily entails advocating for students on campus and sharing resources. She is also on the board of the Pakistani Student Association. While not Pakistani herself, she wanted to help this newer club get started by bringing attention to their mission “to bring light to Pakistani culture,” and so she does social media for their club.
Q: How do you plan to foster transparency and accountability in your role?
A: If elected, Manar hopes to use Instagram as a platform to give the student body an idea of what an ASUCM senator’s day-to-day life is like and what their role entails. "A lot of times people feel a little bit wary about student government or student leadership roles because they don't really know what they're doing,” she says. “To them, it might just feel like a title.” Manar hopes to use social media as a means of fostering personal connections with the student body so they feel more comfortable reaching out to her with their concerns and like the student government really cares about their voices.
Q: What do you hope to achieve during your time in office?
A: Manar’s main goal is to help the general student body and improve their experience at UC Merced, and she believes the best way to do that is through clubs and organizations. Fostering personal connections is very important to her, and so she wants to meet with clubs, organizations, and people from different demographics, "to really be able to listen to what needs to be done."
"Something that I've noticed throughout my years in leadership,” she notes, “has been a lot of times there's a lot of concerns and a lot of room for growth, but people don't communicate that to the people that are in charge because they feel like they're not going to be heard." By meeting with students to work with them on their projects, she hopes to create those personal connections that will make the students of UC Merced feel heard.
Q: What is your current perception of UC Merced’s campus and ASUCM?
A: Manar hopes to improve UC Merced’s image and visibility by working directly with the university’s admissions team, “to show the world what we have to offer.” As UC Merced is a newer school, she wants to work on getting the university more positive recognition. "Almost all of our students have this dying passion," she says. "Over my time here at UC Merced, I have noticed our students hold so much potential. They genuinely have so much love for whatever it is that they're pursuing." By listening to students and meeting with them to hear their concerns, she hopes to use her power as a senator to help them achieve their goals and realize their full potential.
Q: How do you plan to balance your responsibilities as a student with your duties on ASUCM?
A: "I have a lot of drive when I love something, and I always do what I love. I will never put myself in a situation where I'm not enjoying my work and that's why I'm so excited for ASUCM. I love what ASUCM does, I love the potential that it gives all of our students, and I want to be a part of that. […]At the end of the day I know I'm making a difference, and I think that drive will push me through whenever I need."
Q: How do you approach making difficult decisions, especially when faced with conflicting interests?
A: “I anticipate having difficult conversations in ASUCM,” she acknowledges. “I anticipate having peers who will not agree with me, but that’s what’s so beautiful about student government, because when you have so many people from so many different angles that helps you make a better decision for the general public.”
Q: Give an example of a time you had to work with someone who disagreed with your perspective and how you resolved it.
A: In high school, Manar was the president of her school’s ASB (Associated Student Body). In one of their meetings, a bill came up about a club focused on diversity asking for money. “I voted yes, but a lot of my peers voted no. So I started a conversation on why they voted no, and it was mainly because they felt like this club wasn’t adding much to our campus; they felt as if this club didn’t bring as much recognition to our campus, which, in the moment I was a little bit frustrated, because it kind of felt like, we don’t know-- it was a newer club, too, so you don’t know how much potential something holds until you give it a chance, right? [...] And I told them, yes, this may take away funding from some of our bigger clubs, but at the end of the day, we’re giving the smaller club an opportunity to grow. And they can take this and make this something bigger for our future. It’s not always about the present, sometimes you have to look out for the future, too.” The ASB ended up holding a revote, and the bill passed. The club is currently very successful, according to Manar, and holds some of the biggest rallies they have at her former high school.
Isaac was also able to meet with was Raul Nunes, a second-year double majoring in Cognitive Science and Economics. He’s a part of the Yosemite Leadership Program, a program that helps students develop leadership skills and to advocate for environmental justice. He is a brother of the Sigma Chi fraternity and is responsible for the brother’s academics and community service, part of which is cleaning up the highway that they’ve adopted, Highway 59, at least once a month. "We adopted it to give back to our community," he says.
Q: How do you plan to foster transparency and accountability in your role?
A: “My biggest thing is promoting student engagement,” Raul says. Increasing student engagement is one of his major goals as an ASUCM senator. He wants to improve engagement and communication with the student body because, "I didn’t know until I started running that a lot of senators have office hours and things that you can go to,” he says. “That just wasn't a thing I was ever aware of.” This is not a problem unique to Raul, as many students at UC Merced are unaware of the resources their student government can provide for them. If elected, he wants to change that and make ASUCM into a stronger voice for the student body. "I want to be as open as possible in terms of communication and collaborate with as many people as I can with different perspectives, whether that's my constituents or anyone around campus."
Q: What is your current perception of UC Merced’s campus and ASUCM?
A: Raul Nunes sees a lot of opportunity for improvement within ASUCM and for UC Merced as a whole. "We're pretty young and I think we have a unique opportunity to shape our identity and culture in so many different ways,” he says. "ASUCM is a pretty important student organization, and they're tasked with representing the interests of the student body and advocating for positive changes on campus. While I do think there are areas for improvement, like increasing transparency and promoting student engagement, I think ASUCM has the potential to be a stronger voice for students and progress at UC Merced."
Q: What do you hope to achieve during your time in office?
A: "I want to implement events and initiatives that promote, celebrate, and support all the diverse identities and backgrounds of our student body." Raul wants to fund more culture events and clubs, and to create ASUCM policies that promote a welcoming environment for everybody. He also wants to create a larger platform for himself and ASUCM through posting consistently about meetings and collaborating with student leaders to address their concerns. "I try my best in listening to others and gathering as many perspectives and opinions… and talking to as many people as I can."
Q: Can you outline specific goals or projects you hope to implement?
A: Raul is committed to reducing waste around campus, especially at the dining centers. He wants to promote more sustainable practices around campus because he believes in our university’s commitment to sustainability and thinks that’s important to uphold.
Q: How do you plan to communicate with your constituents and gather feedback from them?
A: Raul wants to organize a vast range of events such as culture celebrations, to highlight diversity on campus, and community service projects to give back to the Merced community. He aims to be very active on social media because he’s seen that some senators in the past stop putting effort into social media once they are elected, and he doesn't want to do that. "Something I've been doing the past few weeks is I've been reaching out to different organization leaders and seeing what sort of things they think about the student body and their own organization and how ASUCM can help… and an issue that they have is they don't really get any resources or funding towards their small organization, and they can't really do much… they can't really cultivate anything and do things on whatever their organization or club is catered towards." By collaborating with student organizations and promoting or hosting leadership workshops and programs, he hopes to foster community and be communicative with his constituents.
Q: How do you approach making difficult decisions, especially when faced with conflicting interests?
A: When Raul was asked how he approaches difficult decisions, he said that he likes to gather as much information as possible by consulting with whatever people or stakeholders are involved in the situation, then consider implications of each option. "I want to prioritize the greater good of our community-- that's the biggest thing,” he emphasizes. When it comes to making big decisions, seeing from diverse perspectives and making sure all inputs are taken into account is important to him.
