By Toma Lynn Smith
Last week’s runoff election for the position of Academic Vice President found almost 800 students voting in it. And when all the votes were in, School of Engineering Senator Ahmed Awadallah had defeated junior biology major Roger Dotsey for the position.
In the wake of the contest, Awadallah was relieved to have the student body’s support.
“It just made me happy that the student body reassured that they believed in me,” said Awadallah, a junior bioengineering major.
The AVP was the only election which required a run off, though it was initially thought that Executive Vice President and Services Vice President would require one as well. ? Awadallah’s results in the original election were 37.07 percent to Dotsey’s 35.54 percent of the votes.? Last week’s run off percentages were 54.35 percent for Awadallah and 45.65 percent for Dotsey. SGA requires that a candidate receives 40 percent of the vote to claim victory.
Awadallah said he is concerned with involving the student body more in the decision making process.
“My only fear would be communication and maybe collaboration–communication has been a huge problem for student government,”?Awadallah said. “I would really like to get the students more?involved.”
The SGA top positions are junior political science major Rudy Spencer as president; junior business marketing major Mike Dennis as Executive Vice President; and junior political science major Dani Smith as Services Vice President.
“I think their all good leaders,” Awadallah said. “I’m really looking forward to working with them and to work at one common goal:? to improve student government and campus itself.”
