In response to two resignations last semester, Baruch College’s Undergraduate Student Government elected two new members to fill the empty spots at the senate table.

Taji Sanders was elected as representative senator to fill the seat vacated by Mohammad Shahid, and Noah Epstein was elected as vice president of campus affairs to fill the seat vacated by Kendra Lojano.

Sanders, a first-year student at Baruch with an anticipated major in economics, attended the weekly Tuesday senate meetings since last semester and decided to get involved when there was an opening.

“Originally when you’re sitting there in the meeting as an outsider, like not as part of the table, you think you can’t participate, but you definitely can. You can voice your concerns and ask questions,” Sanders explained.

As the only freshman on the senate table, Sanders hopes to focus on helping freshmen become more aware of what opportunities they have available to them at Baruch.

“I want to represent the freshmen that don’t know what they are doing,” Sanders said.

He added, “A lot of students struggle with the social aspect at Baruch and nobody knows about the resources like the MyBaruch site that can provide good information. I want freshmen to be able to come to Baruch and have a list of everything they need.”

Sanders emphasized that the USG Survival Guide was a great resource for him to which he would like to add and improve for the incoming freshmen students.

Epstein, a sophomore majoring in corporate communications, transferred from Bergen Community College last semester.

He explained he took two years off after graduating high school to travel and decided to come back to further his education. Epstein was involved with Hillel before joining USG.

Epstein is also working closely with board member Carolina Parroquin who ran against him for vice president of campus affairs.

“I love working with her. She has great ideas,” he said.

Epstein is ambitious and wants to implement a variety of resources on campus for students such as adding more microwaves, replacing damaged workout machines in the gym, adding a colored printer in the club room area and fixing the kiosk laptops that do not charge fully.

“These are just a list of ideas we have, but obviously we can’t get everything done by the end of this semester,” he said.

“I just met with Savannah from Office of Student Life and she said these are all good ideas, but we gotta filter out the most important ones and get them done.”

He continued, “Right now, our main focus is on the bathrooms — we’re trying to make it a little more neat for everybody. We also are planning on adding feminine hygiene products, maybe like in the dispensers” Epstein said.

In addition, Epstein stressed his personal agenda as vice president of campus affairs is to accommodate the needs of every Baruch student.

He mentioned that “students may be unaware of who they should talk to or they may be intimidated to voice their concerns to USG and instead of waiting for the students to come to us, it would be better if students were able to report their concerns in a more efficient way such as the QR codes.” 

Within two weeks, Epstein and Parroquin plan on hanging up flyers with QR codes throughout the campus so students are able to scan and report any concerns they may have.

Epstein said he plans on campaigning in the 2019-2020 elections for USG.

“I do want to go for elections because it is much more difficult getting elected than getting appointed and I plan on doing that, but before I campaign I also want to get something done and show that I deserve the position,” Epstein said.

Sanders was more hesitant on disclosing his plans about campaigning to The Ticker.

“I don’t know — I’m thinking about it but that’s not really my concern right now. I have a lot of work to do right now, so I’m focusing on that,” Sanders said.