Year: Junior
Hometown: West Orange, New Jersey
Major: Political Science and Philosophy
Student organizations/activities: President of GW’s chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, policy director for GW College Democrats
SA experience: CCAS senator, U-at-Large senator, chair and member of the SA finance committee
Favorite quarantine activity: Hanging with my dog, Champ
First place you will go after the pandemic is no longer a concern: Go back to D.C.
Show you are currently binge-watching: “BoJack Horseman”
Favorite restaurant in the District: Surfside
Favorite outdoor activity: Walking through the D.C. area with my friends at night
Favorite place in the world: I really want to go to Egypt, and I want to see the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Who is your role model: My mom. She is a trooper. I love her.
Proudest GW moment: Completing my first semester at college with a really high GPA
Something you cannot live without: My cell phone
What would your walk-up song be: “Pressure” in My Palms by Aminé
Charles Aborisade spent much of his downtime during the COVID-19 pandemic playing with Champ, his German shepherd.
Aborisade, who announced his campaign for Student Association president late last month, noted that he is not the only person to recently run for office alongside a German shepherd with the name Champ – President Joe Biden also has a dog of the same breed and with the same name.
“That’s a coincidence – nothing was planned,” Aborisade said. “I got Champ in 2014, so this was before I even knew Biden had a dog.”
Aborisade’s primary platform points include increasing funding for the Knowledge in Action Career Internship Fund grants, which support students in unpaid internships, and using SA executive funds to create an “online textbook pantry” that would allow students to access textbook materials online at a discounted price or for free.
Aborisade, who has served in the SA Senate for two years and is the current finance committee chair, said his experience as a chairperson and work with many student organizations give him “unique insight” into student organization operations and will help him build relationships with the GW community as president.
He proposed a policy called “AborisAid” that would involve a task force of SA members and students working to plan events for the student body. He said the task force would help expand student organization programming.
“Now it’s very important to really build that community aspect up, and I think there’s no better way to do that than with student organizations,” Aborisade said. “My job currently as the finance chair gives me a unique insight of how student organizations operate, how they function and what the possibilities lie for them moving forward.”
He said he also hopes to change SA finance operations to allow student organizations to request budgets biannually rather than annually.
Aborisade said he is the best candidate for president because he believes the student body needs a “progressive” student government leader to make changes after spending nearly three semesters away from campus due to the pandemic.
“It’s going to be very important that we have a student government that not only wants to go back to normal but also wants to progress from where we were,” Aborisade said.
