In February, Lincoln University students voted for their new 2020 LUSA President, Saman Mohammadi Sichani. In a recent interview with Sam, we learned more about him, the LUSA Team, and their vision for its future.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. I’m a diagnostic imaging student in my second year of study. I moved to the USA to change my life and I am very pleased with the way things are turning out. I’m experiencing new things, meeting new people and making lots of connections. I know it’s not going to be smooth sailing all the way, but nothing is easy in this world, so I am determined to meet my goals and make a better future. I’m currently single and not looking for a serious relationship because I’m very immersed in my studies and meeting my short term goals and not in a position to handle a relationship at the moment.
Why are you interested in being LUSA President? I am interested in this position because it’s a step forward toward some of my goals which are to take on new challenges, interact outside of my culture, get an opportunity to help people, and learn from them. I thought being the president would open doors to these kinds of interactions.
Who are your team members? We have LUSA Vice President Ms. Sahar Masjouni, Treasurer, Mr. Suliman Kohistani and our Secretary is Ms. Belyne Miruka.
Could you tell us briefly about the duties and responsibilities of your position? Well, I am here to help students in any way possible both for academic and non-academic issues. My team, together with the student services office, is here to make this on-campus life a bit more enjoyable for both domestic and international students. We want to give students better services and provide fun activities so that they can have an unforgettable and fun college life despite everything else.
What are your expectations from your constituents? How can we help you as students to make things run smoothly?
I would like them to be active, to join clubs and workshops provided. Money and time have been put into running these activities by Lincoln University staff, and the student services office and I would like to see students making use of them and hopefully to learn something or be able to give us feedback on what areas we can improve on and what activities we should add or remove.
We have a challenge with students not participating in the activities/events happening around campus. What can the student body do to get them more interested and involved? I have received lots of feedback in regards to the kind of activities that students would prefer and would make them participate more, so we plan to add more non-academic activities beyond what exists right now, for example, music workshops, gym, competitions like pool, table tennis, and basketball. We plan to add or remove activities if necessary as we keep getting feedback from students. Of course, all this now depends on how things go as far as the Corona virus Pandemic is concerned.
What about the fun stuff? What activities can we expect this year? Free lunches perhaps? Yes, we have a lot of things in the pipeline if the situation with COVID-19 improves and we go back to life as usual. We have planned for book reading sessions, which involve choosing a book and assigning a chapter to each member and then meeting and discussing lessons from the books. We also plan to have music classes where students can teach each other how to play different types of musical instruments. There’s also a plan to re-introduce language classes like Spanish and maybe even English classes because some of our students are still learning and mastering the English language. We had planned our yearly cultural day but unfortunately, due to this Corona virus confusion, we could not have it this time.
Tell us two things we don’t know about you.
I guess a lot of students don’t know that I am a music enthusiast and I am a guitar player. Lots of them also always seem surprised when they see me in my scrubs which means they don’t know that I am a diagnostic imaging student, so I would like to take this opportunity to invite them to come to the DI Lab for an ultrasound.
Unfortunately, I don’t have anything exotic or extraordinary about me but I will surely call you when I think of one.