Khan, Rose to replace Gupta, Truong in Academic Campus SGA leadership

Zmarak Khan and Juston Rose will lead the VCU Academic Campus Student Government Association next year.

“I’ve been working on this (platform) as long as I’ve been in college,” said president-elect Khan, referring to his first order of presidential business. “I’ll continue addressing the same platform.”

The Khan-Rose team platform includes a reduction in the ratio of faculty to students in classrooms, additional class-section offerings and improvements in the quality of food at the Hibbs Building.

During his campaign, Khan spoke with some 1,200 students, 299 of whom he reminded to vote via e-mail. He remained confident of the win hours before the last ballot was cast.

“I’ve been trying to reach out to students,” he said. “I have a notebook and write down issues that come up when I talk to people.”

Though Rose was unavailable for comment on the SGA’s election day, other students earlier talked about the election procedures.

“If any news was sent out I didn’t get it,” said Christina St. Clair, a senior. “I just saw the fliers. There was no way to know the issues. If (the candidates) were in the Commons it might help.”

A first-year student, Margaret Rogliano, saw it differently though she declined to identify who received her vote.

“They definitely got their name out,” she said. “They came up to me and informed me.”

The 33 legislative seats have been filled by students from the business, education and engineering schools, as well as the College of Humanities and Sciences. The Senate lacks representatives from the social work, arts and graduate studies schools as well as other degree-seeking students.

Timothy Reed, director of University Student Commons and activities, would like to have better campuswide representation.

“The goal is to get more than 50 (candidates) to force a real election,” he said, recommending that a fall semester election be considered to create more competition for Senate seats.