Treasurer/Trustee candidate: Sayema Matin

Treasurer/Trustee Candidate: Sayema Matin
Party: People’s party
Hometown: Waterford, N.Y.
High School: Waterford-Half Moon
Major: Biology
Age: 18
Clubs/Organizations: Cultural Pride Club, Student Senate

Why did you decide to run for this position?

“I have run for treasurer before, so I kind of have an idea of what you have an idea of what the responsibilities are. I’m running for trustee as well. I didn’t want to run for something like president to have to have two very demanding positions.”

What are your qualifications?

“I am a freshman senator right now, have been since October of the fall semester. I’ve also been president of my high school class two years in a row, so [I] kind of have an idea of, like, responsibility. I’ve also actually been president of my own student government in high school my senior year, so I have a little bit of experience. Hopefully, that can help me in the position.”

What would you say your greatest asset is?

“I think I’m very open-minded. I’m very easy to talk to and friendly. I can listen to people when people are saying things. I’m generally interested in what they’re saying. I think if you have a student Senate that is really involved with the student body that is open to listening to what everyone is saying. I think that’s very important to like be a good listener because in order to represent students you have to make sure you’re listening to them.”

Name three adjectives to describe your ability to lead:

“Compromising, lenient, passionate.”

Can you name five initiatives to focus on?

“We have a lot of goals that we’re hoping to push though, but I say the top five would have to start with transparency. We’re really hoping that the student senate can be more transparent toward the student body and other clubs on campus so that everyone knows what is going on.”

“Involvement is next. I think that’s important. Every school is striving to have more involvement. If we try to get people to be a part of the Student Senate or a part of the clubs on campus, that could be really helpful to not only the students but the school in general.”

“We also want more communication between the senate and the students. We are thinking about implementing some type of text message thing where people can get quick texts about something or if they are club leaders, send summaries the senate to let everyone know what’s going on.”

“We also want to do leadership seminars, and we talked about this. It’d be awesome if we could get the e-boards of all the clubs to sit down, maybe once a month or once every two months, and just ask club leaders what their problems are, along with what they want to plan. We want to have more smaller events like Welcome Week spread throughout the semester.”

What have been your greatest experiences running for student body so far?

“While we were petitioning it was really eye opening. We realized a lot of students don’t know what the Student Senate is. We are representing such a large population, and the fact that so many people didn’t know that we even existed was shocking.”
What is the biggest problem with student life at Hudson Valley?

“I think the biggest problem is just not taking more of an initiative to get people to know more about the things we have on campus. I’m a freshman on the senate, and I don’t even know half of the services that we have. I am always constantly learning new things as people come to senate and are resquesting things. We need to try to get more people to just know whats going on on campus rather than just an email. I mean, they do send out emails, but I doubt anyone actually checks them.”
How would you fix these problems?

“We are thinking about doing the thing the text messaging that I mentioned before and also just having the club presidents bring it up at their own meetings. We’re also thinking about doing some type of video on the campus monitors — like in the library — that will greet the students and let them know what is going on.”

Why did you decide to attend Hudson Valley?

“I think that it’s very hard transition when you’re going from high school to college. Coming to a community college is easier because it is a lot smaller. I am also getting a lot more opportunities here. I don’t think if I had gone to a four-year college that I would have been part of something like the Student Senate. There is also a lot of help on campus. Professors are really invested.”

Previous leadership experience:

Student Government President in her senior year of high school
Class President in her senior and junior years of high school
Treasurer of Mock Trial Club in her sophomore year of high school
President of National Honor Society her freshman year of high school