Last week, we reached out to the nine Student Government Association Finance Board representative candidates via email to get a sense of their campaign and their qualifications. We asked each candidate the same eight questions about themselves and their platform, but there were two questions that we felt were the most important.

1.How do you plan to allocate student org funding in an equitable way?

2.What do you feel Finance Board’s role is within campus life?

Since then two candidates have dropped out of the race. Five candidates responded with answers. Seven candidate positions are up for grabs. Pooja Patel and Achalefac Akem did not comment.

Aliyah Adegun. Photo courtesy of Aliyah Adegun.

Aliyah Adegun’s passion for student government comes from her involvement in her own high school SGA. A freshman health, administration and public policy major, Adegun is ready to “hear the concerns of clubs and see where they feel their needs and wants have and haven’t been satisfied,” she wrote.

Adegun feels that the Finance Board and student organizations have a very “symbiotic” relationship: “We wouldn’t need Finance Board without campus organizations, and without Finance Board we wouldn’t be able to have all the great activities clubs have for their members.”

In addition to her campaign for a Finance Board representative position, Adegun is also very passionate about voting and would like to potentially use her platform to encourage University of Maryland, Baltimore County students to register to vote and vote in the upcoming primaries and election.

Sierra Dubuque

Sierra Dubuque. Photo courtesy of Sierra Dubuque.

As a First Year Ambassador (FYA) within the SGA, Sierra Dubuque’s first placement was within the Finance Board. Dubuque, a freshman biochemistry major, credits this placement as giving her a “front row seat to how Finance Board works.”

During her placement, Dubuque was able to engage both in conversations and decision-making — though FYAs are not voting members of Finance Board — surrounding the budgetary process.

Dubuque plans to “maintain and uphold” the current allocation system, which requires student organizations to request funds one semester in advance. This is, according to Dubuque, the “most fair system available to Finance Board.”

While some may see Finance Board only as a source of student organization funding, Dubuque sees it as a means to provide the “power that students clubs and orgs have to create the UMBC culture,” she wrote.

Victor Kehinde

Victor Kehinde, a freshman biochemistry major, is also a FYA with a placement within the Finance Board.

He credits his time with the Finance Board as providing him with the knowledge he needs to be successful in a full representative position and currently plans to allocate funding in a way that is “fair to all student organizations” but also “benefit[s] the UMBC student community as a whole,” he wrote.

Rehman Liaqat

Rehman Liaqat. Photo courtesy of Rehman Liaqat.

Rehman Liaqat’s campaign is by the people and for the people. Though Liaqat has not held an SGA position before, he has held numerous positions as a member and executive board member for different student organizations around campus which he believes “give[s] me an insight as to how lack of adequate funding affects the events and activities that they implement,” he wrote.

Liaqat, a freshman global studies and political science double major, regards the opportunity to allocate $330,000 to student organizations as a “privilege” and wants to make sure that, if elected, the Finance Board understands each organization’s need for funding and the impact that funding will have on that organization and on campus life.

“Being a part of a group of leaders representing the student body is not about being unique but rather being able to recognize the privilege one holds when making such difficult and complex decisions that profusely affect the ability of students to make change and to stimulate events they find pivotal and essential to campus life,” Liaqat wrote.

Liam Von Alt

Liam Von Alt. Photo courtesy of Liam Von Alt.

For Liam Von Alt, the Finance Board is in “the ideal position to do the most good around campus.”

Von Alt, a sophomore information systems major, plans to allocate funding to student organizations in a “fair and unbiased manner,” he wrote, adding that Finance Board’s role on campus helps student organizations “put on their amazing program[s] and events throughout the year.”

While Von Alt has not served on SGA before, he has held treasurer positions in other capacities in the past, and he currently serves as the treasurer for the Guneukitschik Lodge of the Order of the Arrow for the Boy Scouts of America. Though he considered running for SGA treasurer, Von Alt felt that the skills he has acquired through these positions would be more “valuable” in the process of allocating funds.

Taylor Smith has joined UMBC as the university’s new Assistant Director of Sustainability. 

Taylor has previously worked in the private sector as an environmental engineer and sustainability consultant, supporting sustainable redevelopment, fleet electrification, and renewable energy projects.  Most recently, he supported nationwide sustainability initiatives at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He has a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering and a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Delaware, and recently earned his MBA through the University of Vermont’s sustainable innovation graduate program.  He is a LEED Accredited Professional (AP) and a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in the State of Maryland. 

Taylor has extensive experience collaborating across regulatory agencies, engineering firms, contractors, and non-profit organizations.  He is hopeful his experience will help UMBC build on the strength of its environmental sustainability program while continuing to be a leader in education for the greater Baltimore community.

A life-long learner, Taylor is excited to grow in an academic institution that authentically supports sustainability and environmental stewardship.  Taylor was raised in Maryland and currently lives in Baltimore City.  Outside of his professional life, Taylor is an avid gardener, runner, and food enthusiast.

 

“I am passionate about finding solutions to the massive environmental challenges facing our communities.  Many of those solutions start with education and support for the next generation.  I'm honored to join UMBC's sustainability team, and I’m working to help us prepare for the future by promoting sustainability across our campus.”

-Taylor

An “all-in” personality

Feller has always recognized her artistic side, but she wasn’t always encouraged to integrate it into her career plans. She was a good student, and her kindergarten teacher told her parents she would probably become a doctor. “I got that message my whole life,” Feller says.

It sunk in, and she started at HWS on the pre-med track. As an undergrad, she took an internship as a surgical assistant in a hospital. “There was a major clash with who I was as a person,” Feller says. “Literally, you are in a sterile environment. So while I was good at that job, it crushed me.” 

But expectations die hard, and in her junior year, she was still looking at medical school. She decided she should do research to boost her chances. “Literally, it was just for my CV,” she says. Little did she know the experience would permanently shift her trajectory.

For this design, Feller incorporated the organisms studied in the UMBC biological sciences department for its annual, informal graduate student t-shirt.

Today, Feller is focused on furthering her research, engaging her students, and raising her family—her second child arrived this October. As a faculty member, Feller is maintaining old connections and forging new ones.

“Kate is really doing a fantastic job of creating and maintaining a network across different areas of science and education, in the research that she does but also in the way that she teaches and the way she facilitates those connections across institutions,” Kenyon, her mentor from HWS, says. For example, Kenyon is now collaborating with a colleague at Union because Feller connected them. And Kenyon is using a book in her courses that features the Cronin lab’s research— including some carried out by Feller.

“What I have thoroughly enjoyed is watching Kate progress at each step along the way, and find her passion, and be able to pursue something with such rigor, and excitement and resilience,” says Kenyon.

Whether creating art, performing on stage or in the classroom, working hard in the lab, or collecting specimens underwater, Feller is embracing each stage of her life and career with a zest that is uniquely hers. As Cronin puts it, “She was always Kate. She never started or stopped being Kate.”

“The thing that I love most is just trying to figure out how the world works,” Feller says. “I like to describe myself as an explorer. I am not a Magellan or a person on a ship looking to explore new places—I’m pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Where is the edge, and how can I shed light on the unknown?”

Feller is on the exploration of a lifetime, discovering new things about how brains work, transforming the lives of students, and doing it all in full color. As her research program takes off, her family grows, and her network broadens, her greatest adventures may be ahead of her.

For centuries, media has portrayed Arab culture as misogynistic and homophobic, leaving little room for the possibility that queer Arab communities exist and thrive. Adding to this sense of erasure is the belief some Arab communities have in thinking that homosexuality is not inherently Arab but something the Western world brought to the Arab world. However, the reality queer Arabs and those in the diaspora live is much more positive and complex. 

Mejdulene Bernard Shomali, a queer Palestinian poet and associate professor in the department of gender, women’s, and sexuality studies,wrote the first study of desire that addresses the contemporary cultures and lives of queer Arab women in her book, Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives (Duke University Press, 2023). 

“My research looks at how Arab people experience and narrate their queerness in unexpected ways. For example, Arabs may be in same-sex relationships but might not claim gay or lesbian identities,” Shomali explains to Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and host of The Academic Minute, a daily show featuring faculty from colleges and universities worldwide speaking about their cutting-edge research. “Many queer Arabs might not check off Western benchmarks of LGBT identity, like being ‘out.’ Some of the existing Arabic terms for queer people have negative connotations and are also not popular.” 

UMBC’s Academic Minute series

Shomali joined seven other UMBC scholars this fall in UMBC’s first Academic Minute series, featuring the latest research in media and communication studies; modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication; language, literacy, and culture; philosophy; gender, women’s, and sexuality studies; sociology, anthropology, and public health; and history. This series is republished on NPR podcasts and Inside Higher Ed.

Learn more about Mejdulene Bernard Shomali’s research:

• She is currently a 2023-24 Society for the Humanities fellow at Cornell University, where she is working on a project called Palestine Matters: Aesthetics, Embodiment, and Pleasure in Palestine and also teaching a seminar called “Feeling Free: Radical Aesthetics and Political Affects.”
• Her essays on gender and sexuality in transnational Arab culture include:
  • “Scheherazade and the limits of inclusive politics in Arab American literature”
  • “Political social movements: Homosexuality and queer movements” 
  • “Dancing queens: Queer desire in Golden Era Egyptian Cinema”

Learn more about UMBC’s gender, women’s, and sexuality studies.

For centuries, media has portrayed Arab culture as misogynistic and homophobic, leaving little room for the possibility that queer Arab communities exist and thrive. Adding to this sense of erasure is the belief some Arab communities have in thinking that homosexuality is not inherently Arab but something the Western world brought to the Arab world. However, the reality queer Arabs and those in the diaspora live is much more positive and complex. 

Mejdulene Bernard Shomali, a queer Palestinian poet and associate professor in the department of gender, women’s, and sexuality studies,wrote the first study of desire that addresses the contemporary cultures and lives of queer Arab women in her book, Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives (Duke University Press, 2023). 

“My research looks at how Arab people experience and narrate their queerness in unexpected ways. For example, Arabs may be in same-sex relationships but might not claim gay or lesbian identities,” Shomali explains to Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and host of The Academic Minute, a daily show featuring faculty from colleges and universities worldwide speaking about their cutting-edge research. “Many queer Arabs might not check off Western benchmarks of LGBT identity, like being ‘out.’ Some of the existing Arabic terms for queer people have negative connotations and are also not popular.” 

UMBC’s Academic Minute series

Shomali joined seven other UMBC scholars this fall in UMBC’s first Academic Minute series, featuring the latest research in media and communication studies; modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication; language, literacy, and culture; philosophy; gender, women’s, and sexuality studies; sociology, anthropology, and public health; and history. This series is republished on NPR podcasts and Inside Higher Ed.

Learn more about Mejdulene Bernard Shomali’s research:

• She is currently a 2023-24 Society for the Humanities fellow at Cornell University, where she is working on a project called Palestine Matters: Aesthetics, Embodiment, and Pleasure in Palestine and also teaching a seminar called “Feeling Free: Radical Aesthetics and Political Affects.”
• Her essays on gender and sexuality in transnational Arab culture include:
  • “Scheherazade and the limits of inclusive politics in Arab American literature”
  • “Political social movements: Homosexuality and queer movements” 
  • “Dancing queens: Queer desire in Golden Era Egyptian Cinema”

Learn more about UMBC’s gender, women’s, and sexuality studies.