Rohail Kazi wants to amplify Carolina.
Kazi wants to increase student advocacy.
Kazi wants to enhance the Carolina student experience.
Kazi wants to elevate the university to national prominence, and Kazi wants to be your next Student Body president.
“Rohail is both down-to-earth and very approachable, and the combination of those two things leads me to believe that what he sets his mind to do, he’ll find the right people and be able to convince the right people to do,” campaign manager Trey Gordner said.
Gordner, a second-year international business student, met Kazi through USC’s Residence Hall Association.
“We managed to organize huge events for the entire dorm,” Gordner said. “Getting to see him in that position really let me to believe when he approached me this year, that he would do a great job.”
Kazi, a third-year chemistry student, was born in Pakistan but moved to the United States when he was 18 months old. Kazi’s father was a successful doctor in Pakistan, but he wanted to provide his children with a better opportunity.
“He dropped everything he had over there, and we moved over here,” Kazi said. “He knew American education was pretty top notch, at least compared to Pakistan.”
After living in Philadelphia for a couple of years, Kazi’s family moved to Greenville. At USC, Kazi became involved with RHA during his second year, which led to his current position as secretary of Housing Services. This is his first year involved in Student Government.
While Kazi was in RHA, he discovered that the purchasing process is complicated for hall governments, and Kazi wanted to improve the process. He aims to help organizations, especially residence halls, be more educated on how to get their funding. He already began this effort by working with SG Treasurer Peter Schaeffing to make a tutorial video on how to fill out purchasing paperwork and expenditure vouchers.
Kazi spoke to the administration about the problem and discovered there is a lot of state regulation involved. Kazi said it is ultimately an issue of lobbying the state government, and the issue is still on Kazi’s agenda.
Budget cuts will greatly affect the next SG president, and Kazi plans on combatting the issue by increasing lobbying efforts.
“The biggest problem fundamentally is that we don’t have enough money, and that comes from the Statehouse,” Kazi said.
Kazi acknowledged the accomplishments of this year’s SG, such as the new cab service, student judicial and the efforts to take the CarolinaCard off campus. He plans on building on these programs and starting new programs such as a campus book exchange and installing DVD rental kiosks on campus.
“It’s important to keep pushing the old initiatives but also work with what we have and work with the new ideas that we came up with this year and push those through as well,” Kazi said.
Kazi also plans on addressing the issues that come up every year, such as parking. One of his ideas is to work with parking transportation to convert meter parking spots in Pendleton and Senate Garages to hourly or flat-fee, all-day parking like the Horizon Garage. He also plans on improving the shuttle system.
“We need to work with the resources that we have rather than set our goals too high and disappoint people who expect more than we can actually do,” Kazi said.
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