The Hoya sat down with Thomas Leonard (COL ’23), who is running for Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) President, and Nirvana Khan (SFS ’24), who is running alongside Leonard for GUSA Vice President, to discuss their plans if elected. Voting opens Feb. 10 and closes Feb. 12. 

If elected, what are your top priorities?

Leonard: First is the basic needs of all students, because we want to make sure that your residential living and dining experience is the best one that it can be and that our mental health pandemic is taken as seriously by the administration as it possibly can be. 

The second core area of focus for us is fostering an equitable community and making sure that the voices of all of the different identities on this campus are reflected in the decisions that we make as an administration. 

Our third focus is really emphasizing the student voice, working with other campus organizations to make sure that our platform and the work that we’re doing is in line with what their needs are and that GUSA stands as an ally to the broader student body and no longer will exist as an organization that doesn’t do everything in their power to make sure that every voice is accounted for.

Khan: I really want to be a voice for the AAPI [Asian American Pacific Islander] community on campus and work on things such as creating more cultural safe spaces on campus, creating a residential community for the AAPI community, working on the race, ethnicity and migration studies program that’s been proposed by a number of campus groups, as well as increasing our coordination with local mutual aid organizations. 

Something else that we’re both really prioritizing on our platform is accessibility. A lot of campus spaces are inaccessible. A lot of professors don’t really face long-term consequences for not meeting accommodations. That’s something we really want to support, because it’s crucial that everybody has an equal access to the Georgetown experience.

Many students in the campus community are confused about GUSA and feel that it is ineffective. What do you think sets you apart from previous GUSA presidents and vice presidents? 

Khan: COVID really did act as a setback. It erased a lot of institutional history and knowledge and raised questions about GUSA’s presence on campus and how to bring that back. We want to ramp up the social programming for GUSA members and become a more tight-knit community. We want to do a complete overhaul of our communications. We want to set up formal meetings with student organizations, which hasn’t ever been a part of GUSA. 

How do you hope to change, if at all, interaction between the GUSA exec and the administration?

Leonard: Nirvana and I are in a particularly unique position in that we have existing relationships with campus administration. It’s much easier for us to present the needs of the student body and work collaboratively with them and make sure that everything they’re doing is in line with what the student body needs.

Your platform calls for the reinstatement of student guards in residence halls. Do you think this is truly the most effective solution to addressing the residential safety issue and those concerns?

Khan: The people we’ve spoken to feel just a little bit safer when we recognize the person working at the desk, or when we know there is another student that just adds a layer of safety. We definitely want to make sure that in increasing residential safety, we don’t make anybody feel uncomfortable by the presence of additional guards. 

How do you plan to pressure the university to act on the GU272 referendum?

Leonard: Nirvana and I both had the privilege of taking part in a revitalization of the pushes for the GU272 Advocacy Team movements, and we have overseen the creation of a grant review committee that is currently being overseen by the Office of the President in conjunction with Nirvana, myself and other members of this current GUSA administration. 

Financial reparations are not enough. And having screens in Sellinger with names … it’s not enough. We want to work very closely with President DeGioia to make sure that the university faces its history in a much more meaningful way. We want to work very closely with the master planning consortium to make sure that we have physical spaces on campus dedicated to reconciliation with our history, not only with the horrible nature of slavery, but the Jesuits’ role in the global space.