The first female in four years is vying for the Student Association’s top spot, pledging to improve career services and continue the student space fight.
SA Vice President of Public Affairs Julia Susuni said she would push for better alumni-student programs in career services, put Trader Joe’s on GWorld and create an interdisciplinary leadership minor.
“I think it’s important to tackle those things that don’t take up as much time but are very important, because at the end of the day, everyone wants a more efficient system,” the junior said.
She pledged to expand alumni mentorship programs and help GW connect more students with alumni. GW, which hired its first provost for career services last month, will pump $20 million into job programs over the next decade. Susuni stressed keeping students involved in conversations about the overhaul.
Susuni said that she wants to improve the student experience, hoping to bring Trader Joe’s onto GWorld and move Student Health Service on campus – ideas that past candidates have failed to achieve.
“Trader Joe’s is a place I’ve heard a lot about from students,” Susuni said. “It’s an alternative to Whole Foods because it’s more affordable.”
She said she would lobby the grocery store’s national headquarters, like former SA president Nicole Capp did in 2007 to add the former Watergate Safeway to the program. In 2007, Trader Joe’s declined to accept GWorld at its Foggy Bottom store.
Lindsey Mertens, a spokeswoman for Trader Joe’s, declined to comment on the possibly of adding GWorld.
She said moving SHS offices closer to campus, perhaps into Tompkins Hall, which will mostly empty out when science and engineering departments move into a new building in 2015, would be more convenient for sick students.
Capp, followed by Julie Bindleglass in 2009, were the last two females to get elected to the top SA post. If elected, Susuni would be the fourth female elected president in GW’s history.
The first female president, Carrie Potter, was elected in 1998. Since 1977, there have also been seven female executive vice presidents, including this year’s Abby Bergren.
Susuni will run against SA Sen. Michael Morgan, ESIA-U, and freshman Tywan Wade. The final candidate list will be announced Friday.
Susuni said a leadership minor, with internship and volunteering credit and interdisciplinary courses, would help students take advantage of D.C.
“I really want to help this University and make the student body better,” Susuni, a junior, said. “A lot of what I have seen this year has given me the tools to identify and act on all of these issues.”
She is a member of GW Women in Business, the Alpha Delta Pi and GW Hillel.
