Two LSU students are leading the Challenge ticket in the upcoming Student Government election, vying to become the next student body president and vice-president.
Biological sciences junior Munjed Isa and kinesiology sophomore Macye Brown announced their candidacies for student-body president and vice president, respectively, in a campaign ad on Instagram released February 3.
Isa said he’s a first-generation college student. He said he was born in Alexandria but spent some time in Palestine, where his parents are from. He served as a SG senator for three semesters and currently serves in the executive branch as assistant director of athletic relations.
Brown said she is from Belle Chasse and is a member of the Kappa Delta sorority as the outreach chair. Brown said she served on the LSU community council for Azalea Hall and served in the Freshman Leadership Council. She currently serves as college council president of the university Center for Advising and Counseling.
Isa said his campaign has received funding from various oil companies. Brown secured funding from some construction and air conditioning companies in Belle Chasse. The new SG election code caps campaign spending at $4,000.
Brown said the pair shares goals of improving campus in sectors of public safety, transportation and transparency.
“We met each other and instantly clicked, and we kind of got to talking about what we wanted to change about LSU’s campus and what was already in place that we could kind of alter and make better,” Brown said.
Brown said she wanted to be a voice for underclassmen at LSU. She said she wanted to show that students don’t have to wait until later in their college careers to make changes.
“I just wanted to let them know that they can achieve their goals whenever they want to, they don’t have to wait for a certain time,” Brown said.
Isa serves as the recruitment chair for his fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon. He said he serves on the Interfraternity Council and is director of recruitment and registration.
“It’s really eye opening to be in so many different areas, seeing different aspects of campus life,” Isa said.
They plan to improve transparency between LSU police, Baton Rouge police, students and staff, Brown said. In the wake of the crimes that occurred last semester involving LSU students, they want to improve safety and add more cameras and lights to campus.
They also want to create a blue light system, where buttons will be placed around campus that can immediately notify police, Brown said.
“We want to add another way for students to feel safe, at the click of a button, if they need help, they will get attention within seconds,” Brown said.
Parking and transportation is another issue area the team is eying. Isa said they want to institute a “No parking, no fine,” policy, meaning that if there’s sufficient evidence a student was unable to find a parking spot, they won’t be fined for parking somewhere they’re not supposed to.
Brown said they also have ideas to improve the bus system, such as making bus driver breaks scheduled so that students are aware of them in advance and can plan accordingly. She said currently the drivers are taking breaks whenever they want. She also wants to make the expected arrival times of the buses more accurate.
Brown said improving the buses could improve the utility of the Park and Geaux system, where students pay $50 to park in lots off campus. They also want to add rentable electric scooters to campus, specifically in the Park and Geaux spots, she said.
Isa said he wanted to make a larger effort for SG to go out and see what the student-body wants to see implemented.
“We want the students to voice their concerns,” Isa said. “We will be having weekly polls with, ‘What do you want? What events are you looking forward to? What are you most concerned with? What do you want to see happen in the near future?’”
Isa said implementing public forums into SG’s operations is important to making sure they remain in touch with the interests of students. He said despite SG meetings being open to the public, he’s never seen many people from the public there. He said there needs to be more advertising for students to go to the meetings.
Brown said SG has been out of touch with the student body and hasn’t been properly serving as a liaison between students and staff.
SG elections will be held over March 30-31.
The Reveille will be profiling all Student Government tickets ahead of the election.
