Student Government Association elects new vice president
Student Government Association
FILE-Watfae Zayed, President of DePaul’s Student Government Association.
Voting members of DePaul’s Student Government Association (SGA) elected Watfae Zayed to become vice president after Thursday’s general body meeting.
Zayed served as senator for Commuter Students this year before running for vice president. In addition, Zayed works as an EMT and serves as a Chicago Quarter Mentor at DePaul.
During SGA’s Meet the Candidate event at Thursday’s meeting, Zayed said she believed she is fit for the role of vice president as she has conducted leadership training at her mosque serving in different leadership positions.
“In my role as manager there, I was the treasurer, the chief of staff, the facilitator [and] the president,” Zayed said. “I kind of had to do it all including taking notes, planning our budget [and] assigning tasks. So in terms of understanding cabinet, I kind of understand how most of the positions on cabinet run because I had to do them all in one, and I am currently still doing that at my mosque.”
Zayed said if students come to her with issues important to them, she would listen to them and ask them how they want the problem solved to better advocate for their needs.
“I know I can never walk a day in anyone else’s shoes in this room,” Zayed said. “Similarly you can’t walk a day in mine, and when you bring an issue to me, I want to know how you want to see it solved and what you think I should do to advocate for you because it’s not my place to call the shots on how things should be done.”
Zayed added she was interested in the vice president position to better represent Palestinian students and minority students at DePaul as she is Palestinian.
“Palestinian students, especially these past three years have been extreme targets at DePaul,” Zayed said. “I want to do everything I can to use this platform to help Palestinians and all students at DePaul, but Palestinian students haven’t been really given that voice or the respect by the university and I think that’s something that needs to change.”
Zayed has also worked with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) since her freshman year and has been involved in campaigns to support Palestine outside of DePaul, adding that she has protested and advocated for Palestine “since I could walk.”
When asked how she would advocate for LGBTQ students at DePaul, Zayed said she would meet with those students to understand their concerns to better advocate for their needs.
“I want to be able to meet with you [the president of Spectrum DePaul] and Spectrum DePaul and whoever else is interested and hear what needs to be done and have all the facts [and] everything I need to move forward and have your voice included in that conversation,” Zayed said.
In addition to Zayed, two other candidates ran for vice president: Misael Alejandre, SGA’s chief of staff, and Wesley Janicki, SGA’s executive vice president of operations.
The vice president’s position fell vacant earlier this month after former SGA President Gisselle Cervantes resigned from the position making Alyssa Isberto, the former SGA vice president, the new president. Isberto has been a part of SGA for three years serving in several different positions including executive vice president of student affairs.
Besides holding a Meet the Candidates event for those that ran for vice president, SGA discussed other items on its agenda.
SGA will hold elections this quarter to fill vacant positions. Starting Sept. 30, SGA will hold an informational session for students to attend and three additional sessions afterwards on Oct. 2, Oct. 5 and Oct. 9. Afterwards, candidate materials will be due on Oct. 14 at 5 p.m.
Jane Pallos, SGA’s elections coordinator, said she wants to ensure students applying to run for a position on SGA have time to plan.
“The reason that I have things going from the beginning of October until when their materials are going to be due is because I want people to have enough time to really think over what their platforms are going to be, not having to rush to whether or not they want to run,” Pallos said.
Elections will begin on Oct. 19 at 9 a.m. until Oct. 22 at 12 p.m. On Oct. 20, SGA will hold a Meet the Candidates event at 5 p.m.
SGA President Alyssa Isberto announced the resignation of two SGA senators: Andrew Keil, senator for the College of Law, and Jenna Dahbur, senator for Community and Government Relations. These positions are vacant and up for election in October.
SGA is planning to create an SGA Guidebook that would explain the functions of committees and other aspects of the university to help SGA members and others at DePaul better understand these areas.
SGA will have several guests attending its general body meeting in the coming weeks. Kathryn Statz, the director of Gender Equity and Title IX coordinator, will attend SGA’s Oct. 1 meeting to speak about updates to Title IX. DePaul President A. Gabriel Esteban will attend SGA’s meeting on Nov. 5.
SGA Advisor Courtney James said SGA is in the process of migrating its old website to a DeHUB page. James said SGA’s old website is “outdated” due to the process of trying to make updates to the website. “[The new website] is managed by DeHUB so it pulls all of the information that we put into DeHUB already in so that it will automatically make updates for you,” James said.
James added that the new site through DeHUB is much easier and faster to edit and add information to. The site includes information about SGA’s upcoming meetings and events, meeting minutes and videos of SGA’s previous general body meetings.
James encouraged students to register to vote and added students can useTurboVote to register.
Joe Moran, MBA DePaul '59 • Sep 30, 2020 at 3:27 pm
Perhaps Ms. Cervantes might reread my comments to understand what I really said. I did not accuse Ms. Zayed of anything untoward. I made no (as in zip, nada) criticism about “how Watfae will advocate…”.
I (quite properly) asked questions of Ms. Zayed about her stated DePaul SGA-VP views that need a bit of explaining. ALL students, e.g., Palestinians, Irish-Catholics, Israelis, African Americans, et al, must convincingly feel their interests carry as much weight with the new VP as her personal advocacy for Palestinians in her ‘non SGA-VP’ role.
If my comments made any DePaul student, including Ms. Cervantes, uncomfortable enough to ask their own questions or make informed comments for all to contemplate, I am happy. By the way, isn’t making one intellectually uncomfortable a critical part of a university learning experience? Otherwise, such becomes pure (and boring) rote.
An SGA VP must assume a stated organizational persona when carrying out that role, quite separate from the incumbent’s personal viewpoints. There is a ‘job description’ for the function. My comments sought to bring assurance to ALL students (past and present), that any incumbent in a DePaul bully-pulpit position, would clearly give a proactive assurance that one’s personal goals would not influence matters covered within the that job description.
Final comment/suggestion: it is most unfortunate that DePaul has shown little to no interest in having an ongoing forum dedicated to robust online dialogue between current inhabitants of DePaul (students, faculty, administration) and those formerly there (alums), AKA the entire DePaul ‘Community’.
What’s to have true dialogue about? Lots of societal issues, that’s what.
Examples: the Palestinian/middle east issue; free speech on campus, sans fear; decriminalize all drugs (check out Portugal); fracking; corn ethanol, electoral college; Nat’l popular vote for President? I’ll stop here. There are lots more!
Why do such a thing? Answer: Why not?
One suggestion: Perhaps… TO LEARN? (consider: There are 23,000 students and 190,000 alums — dialogue could be exciting).
Or is talking only within your immediate safe-space groups sufficient? I hope not. Pope Francis on dialogue: “If there is one word that we should never tire of repeating, it is this: dialogue. We are called to promote a culture of dialogue by every possible means and thus to rebuild the fabric of society.”
So, current DePaulians – any takers?
Or…Not.
Joe Moran (DePaul MBA 1959)
Gisselle Cervantes • Sep 29, 2020 at 10:12 pm
I’d like to respond directly to the comment above me, it looks like I am unable to directly so I hope he sees my comment.
Watfae is going to be an amazing Vice-President BECAUSE of how she recognizes the need for additional support for Palestinian students. The comment above me clearly doesn’t recognize that part of advocating for every single student at DePaul is recognizing the need to uplift the voices of students who historically haven’t be represented adequately. And quite frankly, I think its sign of strength, maturity, and courage that Watfae states that she is ready to represent and support Palestinian students at DePaul. For a DePaul alumni to try to unfairly criticize how Watfae will advocate for students is way out of line. And I strongly believe that any current student at DePaul, and these are the people actually impacted by what SGA does, would agree with me.
But at the end of day, I’d like to emphasize how amazing of a leader Watfae is going to be. I’ve worked with her and I know how intelligent, kind, and amazing she is. The group is so lucky to have her as the Vice-President because she graces every space she enters with her phenomenal presence. Thank you Watfae for everything you already have done and everything you are going to do to support students. I am excited to continue to witness the amazing things SGA is going to do under Watfae and Alyssa’s leadership.
Joe Moran (DePaul MBA 1959 • Sep 28, 2020 at 2:58 pm
Congratulations to Ms. Zayed on her election as VP of SGA.
However: a comment or two and some (unsolicited but timeless) advice from an old DePaulian – from an earlier DePaul era.
Some troubling quotes in the above announcement about the Ms. Zayed’s appointment.
“She was interested in the vice president position to better represent Palestinian students and minority students, as she is Palestinian.” My comments: Must the VP be “Palestinian” to properly represent Palestinian students? The VP job is to represent ALL students, not simply specified groups.
Newly minted VP Zayed says further: “I want to do everything I can to use this platform to help Palestinians and all students at DePaul…”. The phrase “and all students” should not be an afterthought – it must be the primary focus. Students should not have to wonder “will she advocate for me, a non-Palestinian student, or must I look elsewhere”?
When a person has achieved a senior position in any organization that has many racial, ethnic, etc., members, (s)he must not be perceived as a spokesperson for only one subgroup, lest (s)he be be viewed as a prejudiced and narrowly focused advocate.
Query to President Esteban: Perhaps you should have a heart-to-heart with Ms. Zayed to emphasize that whatever her personal advocacy, she has an important organizational role to play, – that all DePaul students are to be treated equally. She must dispassionately treat any student request for advocacy with equal fervor
– or withdraw from the position.
Joe Moran (MBA DePaul 1959)