Pictured Above: Abbas and Kelly have a campaign staff composed of students from every USF campus.
Courtesy of Jaida Abbas
By Trevor Martindale
Jaida Abbas and Jennifer Kelly decided to run for Student Government president and vice president out of a “commitment to the student body” that developed from their previous SG experience.
Abbas, a third-year political science major with a minor in public service and leadership, served last year as the assistant director of government affairs at USF Tampa’s SG executive branch. She now serves as Tampa’s deputy public defender.
“I feel a strong sense of commitment to the USF student body, and I feel confident that I can empower those around me to help me make USF a better place to be a student,” Abbas said in an email to The Crow’s Nest.
Kelly, a third-year political science major with a minor in international relations, serves as SG’s system-wide solicitor general.
“I am running for vice presidency to implement true change that the students specifically ask for and contribute to making,” Kelly said in an email to The Crow’s Nest. “The students deserve leaders who will make an active, responsive effort to gauge what the university needs to ensure every member of the student body may live out (a) fulfilled college experience”
Abbas and Kelly are running on the campaign slogan “RISE with J and J.”
RISE stands for “respond to disparities of the pandemic, integrate new resources, strengthen the student body and empower students to rebuild.”
Abbas and Kelly are focusing their attention on obstacles presented by consolidation and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are running on a platform that is geared toward responding to the new challenges the student body has faced from both consolidation and COVID-19,” Abbas said. “We understand it has been a tough year in so many ways for students and our organization’s purpose is to support those very students.”
The platform includes addressing sexual assault on campus.
“I don’t want incoming freshmen to be on hyper alert awareness every time they go out with their roommates to have fun,” Kelly said. “I know that Jaida and I are only two people, and we are not going to eliminate the institutional sexism and gender violence that has been ingrained into this world for centuries before us.
“But what I do know is Jaida and I are going to work with all the power we have as your next president and vice President to significantly diminish the problem on our three campuses at least.”
According to the ticket’s website, Abbas and Kelly are looking to create a partnership with crisis centers near the respective campuses.
The ticket also hopes to implement a “registration revamp,” which would entail providing students with opportunities for better class registration times. They also are looking to expand plant-based options at all dining hall locations.
Kelly emphasized that the ticket created the platform through listening to students.
“We have spent countless hours digging deep into what exactly the students want, not just what we think they want,” Kelly said. “We utilized opinions and suggestions from a plethora of students to truly gauge what our platform should consist of. Our platform was created by the student body, for the student body.”
According to Abbas, the search for student concerns entailed looking at class social media pages, reading complaints, evaluating SG survey responses and hiring non-SG students from all three campuses to their campaign staff.
When it comes to St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee, Abbas said communication with local leaders will be instrumental.
I think the key to fully representing all three campuses next year, as a student belonging only to one, is to make sure the governors are being intently listened to,” Abbas said. “They are theoretically the most fully equipped to communicate the needs of their campus and as they are direct representation, they should be the guiding force to how federal leadership serves those students.
“My administration will be built on the notion that as federal leadership we will be adopting the needs of all three campuses and finding intersections between them rather than communicating goals downward.”
You can find Abbas and Kelly’s campaign on Instagram.
