Farook Al-Muflehi is a fifth-year neuroscience and mental health student with a minor in business law, currently re-running as vice-president (internal) in the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) 2020 elections as part of the Students First slate.
Previous experience
Al-Muflehi has been involved with 13 different clubs on campus, such as the Yemeni Students’ Association and the Neuroscience Society, and served in an executive role for over seven of them.
He has also represented the science faculty as a councillor for CUSA council and has served in executive roles as vice-president (social), vice-president (finance) and is currently the CUSA vice-president (internal).
Reasons for running
“Carleton has given me a lot,” Al-Muflehi said. “Coming to university, I was just a student who had a simple mindset of school, classes, go home. I didn’t really know what was in store for me or what potential I had in myself.”
Al-Muflehi credits Carleton’s community and the clubs he was involved in for the positive impact they had on him, saying they affected him a lot.
“If I can continue to make Carleton a better place, a place where it can affect other students the way it affected me, that’s something I actually wanted to do,” he said, adding it was one of the reasons why he ran last year.
“I wanted to run again to continue what I did, not only just continue, but make ways to do it better.”
Slate or independent?
“[Students First] is a group of individuals who are very strong leaders on campus,” said Al-Muflehi.
“We have this sense of family, everyone makes it feel inclusive, everyone’s welcome, and that is something we do like and we want to make sure that every person we encounter feels that.”
Campaign goals
One of Al-Muflehi’s campaign goals is making IT solutions more accessible to students by empowering IT and engineering students to assist other students.
“We have a lot of gifted students here on campus, so why not give them the opportunity and platform to serve the students and gain some experience?”
Al-Muflehi also wants to create a platform for clubs and societies to advertise their events, adding that a lot of club members “put in their valuable time into making sure they have an impact around campus, so we want to value that.”
Al-Muflehi also plans on organizing meetups between councillors and students to “empower them.”
“We want the students to be able to reach out to the councillors and meet up with them and express their concerns or any issues or anything they want to express, and they can bring it to us,” he said.
“Our goal is to reach out to the student body in any way and every way possible,” he added.
Final thoughts
Al-Muflehi said his experience as vice-president (internal) last year is a key factor in making him stand out amongst the other candidates.
“It’s tough to walk into a position, such a high position, just right off the bat,” he said.
“I think the fact that I already served in that position, I know what I’m doing, I know what I’m getting myself into,” Al-Muflehi added.
“I think the biggest thing for me was making the uncomfortable comfortable. I’d say to all students, but if there’s any first-year students or second-year students, this world is yours. Go out there.”
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
