Hussain Wins Close Election

In a very low voter turnout, Political Science major Adil Hussain was elected the new vice president of academic affairs for the Undergraduate Student Government on Friday, with a tight 21-vote win against his opponent.

Hussain, who has designed layouts for The Statesman, had 251 votes while English major Amanda Cohen had 230. Nearly 16,000 undergraduate students were eligible to vote.

The new vice president said he wasn’t surprised at the tight difference because Cohen “also ran a great campaign,” but he was “bothered” by the 481-voter turnout — about three percent of eligible voters.

“I feel like people aren’t willing to log into SOLAR just to go in and vote. I don’t know why, and that’s something that should be important to them,” Hussain said. “Everyone has a lot of problems with the USG, but they don’t realize that voting is what changes it all.”

The 19-year-old sophomore is planning to promote USG’s PASS — Providing Academic Support for Students — tutoring program, make recitations more effective, create a new tutor evaluation system and reduce the communication gap between students and professors.

“Unfortunately, the lack of help from some professors and [teaching assistants] set us up for failure in those core classes we need for our majors and this is unacceptable,” Hussain wrote on his Facebook campaign page. “With my leadership and dedication and the support of the Student Body, I will make academia more efficient for Stony Brook students.”

Freshman Rep Election Goes Into Runoff

In another low voter turnout, USG’s freshman representative election did not have a winner last week.

Because none of the seven candidates received the required 51 percent of votes to be elected, the top two candidates will face each other in a runoff election this week.

Political Science major Stanley Ige received 84 votes, and Tyrik Jiang, a history major, had 62. The runoff voting is taking place on SOLAR between Monday, Nov. 7, and Friday, Nov. 11, at noon.

Ige said he was “disappointed” at the 300-voter turnout and will try to get more students’ attention this week.

Jiang said he expected the turnout to be low because he conducted research that found that it is common at Stony Brook. But he was “pretty shocked” he came in second place. The difference between him and the third-place candidate was four votes.

The USG election is not the only contest top-candidate Ige has participated in this month. Ige was a male beauty contestant at Africa Student Union’s King of Africa Pageant on Saturday, Nov. 5.

USG Recognizes New Clubs

Three Stony Brook clubs — the Dumbledore’s Army, the Neuroscience Axis and Stony Brook Heals — were granted funding eligibility at USG’s Senate meeting on Thursday, Nov. 3.

The Dumbledore’s Army is a chapter of the international charity organization Harry Potter Alliance, whose goal is “to increase activism for social change by using parallels from the Harry Potter books,” according to the club’s constitution.

The Neuroscience Axis aims to facilitate interactions between students of neuroscience and other biology concentrations. Senator Max Gunther said the club used to be “focused on neuroscience only,” but it has now opened up to all specializations under biology.

SB Heals wants to make the university “a hub for social and educational outreach programs in the local and international communities,” its constitution says. Alok Joshi, the organization’s president, said SB Heals’ primary goal is to educate less fortunate children around the world. The acronym Heal stands for health, education, advancement and lifestyle.