rehman liaqat

What relevant experience would you bring to the position you are seeking?

I’ve served as a UMBC SGA Finance Board Representative for the 2020-2021 term and engaged in both budgetary matters and virtual board deliberations through an unprecedented global pandemic. Through my term, I’ve had the privilege to both draft and sponsor an SGA bill regarding a Community-Wide Day of Civic Service to allow students a day to engage in civic engagement and vote without the pressure of academics and social burdens that come along with being a student. I’ve been a member of the Finance Board Initiatives committee, which functions to ameliorate the connection between student organizations and the Finance Board. I’ve also worked with other board members in the Finance Board Monthly Report committee, which drafts and publishes monthly reports of all Finance Board legislation, updates, and budgetary matters to ensure that student organizations are being updated to the fullest capacity. Working and actively being involved with numerous student organizations, I have seen how emphatically a lack of funding affects student organizations and their ability to promote student engagement. I believe that my past experience as a Finance Board member and my involvement with many student organizations can be essential to the process of equitable budgetary allocation for standing UMBC student organizations.

How do you intend on fulfilling your role while working alongside other members of SGA? What strategies do you use to address conflict?

The work that we do as the Finance Board is driven by active collaboration and deliberation. Recognizing both the privilege and responsibility we hold as Board members, I would work to remind both myself and other board members that our work is more meaningful than ever and how impactful our decisions are in regards to student engagement and campus culture. Through this perspective, I intend to adhere to principles of transparency and equity when working with Board members to provide equitable solutions for budgetary matters. Even during times of difficulty and conflict, I would uphold our mission of ensuring the betterment of our student organizations. In these times of conflict, I could encourage our board to be true to the values we collectively hold as student representatives––such values include empathy and the earnest desire to ensure all sides are given light. As elected officials, we must understand the meaning behind our roles as campus leaders and encourage all of our Board members to navigate every difficult conflict with the utmost integrity.

What is your vision for the funds that SGA has available to allocate to student organizations?

The responsibility of allocating funds to hundreds of student organizations in a limited capacity is truly a strenuous task in nature. Oftentimes, it is not that an organization is more or less deserving of the disputed funds, but that the funds cannot be allocated because of previous precedents, SGA Budgetary guidelines, or simply due to a lack of financial resources or active transparency in budgetary policy changes to the student organizations. It is essential that the Board be transparent when making all decisions and use consistent analytic reasoning to equitably allocate funds.

What do you think the Finance Board has done well? What do you think the Finance Board needs to improve?

As a reflection from my prior experience as a Board member, I believe we have dramatically improved in how we are allocating funding to and for student organizations. The process of equitable budgetary allocations to hundreds of student organizations is quite difficult but the active ability of the Board to be transparent and recognize both the circumstances and the needs of student organizations in the budgetary process has been proven in the past few terms by prudent board members. However, I do believe that more focus needs to be drawn to the active deliberations we have as Board members and ensuring that all circumstances and sides are being drawn to the light before voting. I also hope that recommendations from Board advisors and student organization concerns in the budgetary allocation process are understood to a higher standard. No Board or their service to the community can ever be defined as “perfect” but encouraging all Board members to be active and understanding of how significant our Board discourse can be to the future of student organizations and ensuring that we are committing to both our personal and collective values as student representatives is a step into the right direction!