![\"\"](\"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/int.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Planes were a near constant sound over Intzar Singh\u2019s childhood home in South Ozone Park, Queens, just a few minutes away from JFK. But over time, he said, he got used to the noise.<\/p>\n
As the new president of the Undergraduate Student Government, Singh seems to be doing just that yet again: blocking out the noise. Confident and unflappable, with a sharp haircut and energetic voice, Singh appears to adapt quickly in other areas of his life too. Hunter doesn\u2019t offer a finance major, so he is teaching himself by poring over finance books in his spare time. When his parents would not allow him to go to SUNY Binghamton, Singh shifted his plans and came to Hunter. A math major, he discovered a love of theater in college, and decided to minor in in the subject because it brings out his creative side and exposes him to different people and conversations.<\/p>\n
This is Singh\u2019s third year as a member of USG. Before elected president, he acted as treasurer, which he calls the toughest E-board position. Singh, along with nine other members of the E-board, is paid $5,345 for the job, and members and senators are paid a range of $500 to $2,500<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even after dealing with 20 minutes of Hunter bureaucracy before this interview, Singh had a smile on his face and was ready to switch gears for a discussion about his new gig. \u201cI tend to work best when there\u2019s a lot going on,\u201d he said, only a little out of breath.<\/p>\n Here, the Athenian sits down with the new president of the USG\u2014which acts as the top liaison between students and administration, as well as charters clubs and organizes events\u2014to see how the first four months of his term have gone, and what plans he has for the next eight.<\/p>\n You inherited a nine-member E-board that controls more than $200,000 in funds that goes towards events like the Blood Drive, Spring Fling, street fair and the Thanksgiving Dinner. Are there any changes you want to make? <\/strong><\/p>\n Reaching out to a broader demographic for involvement in USG, reaching out to more students, and in general, just learning how to do those things. Even though we\u2019re made to represent the students, I feel like there\u2019s still a disconnect. There hasn\u2019t been a free flow of communication in terms of, \u201cHow do I talk to USG about certain things that I have a problem with?\u201d One of the best ways to reach us is just drop by and be like, \u201cHey, I have this question.\u201d Maybe we\u2019re not able to meet with you right away, but I\u2019ll give you my email, and it\u2019s available online too, and then we can have a sit-down, like now. (Singh can be reached for questions here: intzar.singh@hunterusg.org<\/a>)<\/p>\n How do you work with the college administration?<\/strong><\/p>\n We regularly have conversations like, \u201cHey, where\u2019s the cafeteria?\u201d or \u201cHey, what\u2019s up with the bedbugs?\u201d and then eventually, they were like, \u201cOk now we implemented this bedbug thing.\u201d<\/p>\n They did? <\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, according to them, they have a process for\u2014I\u2019m assuming it\u2019s an outside vendor that comes in and they do a cleaning of basically the carpeted floors, the ones with a lot of cloth heavy seating, because that\u2019s where the bedbugs tend to be.<\/p>\n Hopefully the complaints die down, and if not, then we need to have a sit-down with them again, like, \u201cOk, I\u2019m sure you guys tried to implement a thing, but now you guys need a better procedure than this.\u201d<\/p>\n What are the powers of USG? What can and can\u2019t it do?<\/strong><\/p>\n USG itself doesn\u2019t have any control over the facilities. We can\u2019t be like, \u201cWe want this thing here. We want this thing here.\u201d I feel like a lot of people don\u2019t understand that from their end. We want to build an open communication, so if we have a meeting with administration about bedbugs and the cafeteria, maybe there\u2019s a better way of getting that out. So far I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve done a very good job of it, but it\u2019s a process.<\/p>\n Honestly, a lot of that is also like, \u201cThe internet\u2019s down.\u201d And people are like, \u201cWhat is USG doing?\u201d We don\u2019t control the internet, but if you guys have a problem with the internet, we\u2019ll let people know. We have a say at the table, but we don\u2019t control the table.<\/p>\n USG gets its funding from Student Activity Fees, but that was redistributed last year. What are some tough financial decisions you\u2019ve had to make? <\/strong><\/p>\n CUNY has made it much harder to reject clubs. It\u2019s almost to the point where you really can\u2019t reject the club, so, we\u2019ve had to account for more clubs, but the club money has been cut down by approximately $10,000 of the total pool.<\/p>\n This year we\u2019ve had to cap clubs at $5,000. This has been preemptive cut as we are preparing for more clubs. All clubs get a minimum of $500, which is another change we made. I used to give them $1,000. We think that\u2019s a better amount because we\u2019re not going to be able to reject a lot of them.<\/p>\n It\u2019s really tough in the sense that we\u2019ve had to cut clubs that have performed well back to $5,000. We have to take into account the CUNY bylaw changes, and that the total money we have is not changing but the total number of clubs is growing because we\u2019re not able to limit them as much.<\/p>\n Keeping with this theme of tough financial decisions, everyone is dying to know, is the Spring Concert coming back? <\/strong><\/p>\n So numbers change year round, and I don\u2019t want to give a super political answer, but let\u2019s just say I have a meeting at 1:30. The plan is for us to have a spring concert this year. If it doesn\u2019t happen, we\u2019ll try to make a substitute in some way.<\/p>\n This all sounds like a lot of work. What\u2019s the appeal of this job for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes within USG you get kind of in the rut of just thinking from one perspective, but in being president you have to meet with so many different people. You get to take so many different perspectives into account, and I find that really fun \u2013 s\u00adort of like fitting a puzzle. It\u2019s just like, \u201cThis person wants this. This person wants this. I want this.\u201d And just fitting that all together.<\/p>\n It\u2019s only a one-year term. What can you get done?<\/strong><\/p>\n USG at Hunter is going to continue rolling on for many years after I\u2019m done, so it\u2019s more about making sure that the things I do right now don\u2019t negatively affect the future, and setting up a basis that the next president and vice president and people under them can continue having success. I feel like we\u2019ve sort of been building upon that, so hopefully it works out that way, you know?<\/p>\n This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New USG President Intzar Singh has a lot going on, but likes fitting the puzzle of presidency together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,45,44],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-hunter-college","tag-student-government","tag-usg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/ug-accounts-excel.png\")
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n