Laith Tabbaa – Candidate for Director of Business and Finance

What is your platform?

 “With the honor of being the Director of Business & Finance at Kent State, I intend on working as a catalyst for organizations as well as underrepresented students on campus.  First and foremost, I want to be radically transparent with all funds coming in and out of Undergraduate Student Government. Through this transparency, I intend on creating a holistic environment for all groups on campus. I want to implement change here at Kent State. As overseeing the budget, I feel as if I can help many students and organizations attend events that they never knew they could because of funds. Ensuring that not only one group or a selection of groups receive money, but everyone.  A large percent of our campus does not even know they can receive funding from USG, I want to change that.  Furthermore, with my background working on the allocations committee, and numerous other organizations; I know that I have the drive, work ethic, and discipline to be the next Director of Business & Finance.”

Why should people vote for you?

“I have experience in the field. So the current director of business & finance is Vala Zeinali, he has board members of eight to nine people and pretty much what we do is vote together to pass the funding. What will happen the student will request funding and you will be on that board and you get to go over the numbers, and Vala is always there, so you see how he gets to go about things. Experience is a huge thing. Another reason I think people should vote for me is transparency. So the big thing that I want to do is have a website or a link that shows where are the funding is going. Who is getting funds, and how much they are getting. So if you want to find out how much your organization got to go to Washington for an event, so you can just go on the Google Doc to see how much you are getting. That’ll be a huge thing. Another huge thing is incorporating diversity into Undergraduate Student Government. So a big thing here at Kent is that not many students even know they can get funding. So they can get up to $750 per person to go to any event as long as it is based on their major. Not a lot of people know that, especially the under-represented groups here on campus. So I want to be able to go to those organizations, go to their clubs and be like ‘hey you guys as an organization can go anywhere you want and we can fund it up to $2000.’”

What changes are you looking to enact?

“The big thing that I want to enact is letting people know. Outreach is a huge thing. Like I said, not a lot of people know that we can fund this. So the more people know, the more they can use what they are paying for. Creating a holistic environment on campus, making sure everyone feels safe and that no one feels like they can’t get funding because of their race or ethnicity or religion. The forefront of allocating the money. The big impact would be that I oversee this huge budget of money. So the impact would be giving it to organizations that deserve it, that are going to bring things back from these events and help Kent State.”