With the Student Government Elections for 2019-2020 well underway, students flocked to A3-002 on April 2 from 7 to 9 p.m. to hear from prospective candidates at the Candidates Forum. It was an informative night as candidates detailed their plans for reform, change and progress should they be elected to the positions they are running for, all within a 3 minute time limit. With diverse sentiments and hopes across the board, one unifying trait between all candidates was their passion and eagerness for change. Guillermo Andres Schlamp, Class of 2020, running for the position of Academic Representative for Science said, “I want to change the way capstone is approached by students and admin. In essence a science capstone is a testament to learning the scientific process. There [is] nothing saying it should be a published study or trying to achieve that.”

Other candidates focused on team building and prospects of strengthening relationships on campus. Omair Rehman, Class of 2022 and running for Sophomore representative said, “As the next semester is the last before our class begins studying away, resulting in most of us not seeing each other until senior year, I will work on hosting more events to the the class together more in order to make the most of the time we have together.” Many candidates who are current second and third year students who are studying away had to communicate their speeches remotely through the use of Skype while others who could not be present for the forum had prepared videos in which they detailed their hopes for their respective candidacies should they be elected. A question and answer segment followed each speech as audience members were given the chance to question the candidates.

Due to the implementation of VAT within the UAE, the dining dirham scheme will be restructructured to reflect VAT paid, but will not lead to an increase in prices for students. Therefore there have been updates from the university explaining that students will now receive five percent more campus dirhams than before. Students will now receive a fortnightly 347 AED in campus dirhams instead of the previous 330. The number of meal swipes remains the same at 14 per week.