South Seattle Community College got a new team from the 2009 election.

A week after the election, the shuttle work started. Elected students joined the student government weekly meeting on May 19 and watched Zahra Mohamed, the current issues and concerns chair, facilitating the meeting. After the meeting, presidents, vice presidents, chairs and senators sat with each other and had small conferences. They went through the work done in the past year and talked about the new team building.

In the past academic year, student government had been working on several student concerns, including textbook prices, a microwave in the Cafeteria and parking on 16th avenue. They came up with a textbook lending program, which will hopefully be carried by the Bookstore this fall; they did a great job on the protest incident at Seattle Central Community College by attending district Board and Trustee meetings and expressing the mature opinion.

Current Student Government has tried to do its best to save money due to current economic problems. Aida Mambetkarimova did a good job being as vice president in the past year. Due to her work, student government has saved money mainly on salaries and retreats. She also made a proposal to Student and Activities Fee Board to cut expenses on conferences. Her recommendation for the next team is to be organized as best as they can and follow up.

"When the goal is settled, don't give up due to different reasons, be on face of people, and be persuasive and assertive," she said.

The current president William Kazhaal praised the excellent job the candidates did in the campaign and expressed his hope to the new team. He led the team to think about what the students want instead of what the student government wants. "Set your goals earlier and try to focus on; remember you only have nine months," said Kazhaal. "You are not able to solve everything in a short time, so try to focus the goals."

The new team will continue with the good job that has been done and try to come up with some fresh thoughts as well. As the future president, Nate McRae has some thoughts about the construction. The first thing he would like to accomplish is to bring advance environmental classes to the vocational class schedules. That is to work toward educating students that can break the addiction to gas and other harmful energy sources.

"We will be bringing a group to the SSCC campus called ‘GOT Green’ (Going Out Teaching Green) to help us gain momentum," said McRae, "we will also be writing letters to Barack Obama to tell him about our movement and see how he can help."

When talking about making student government more powerful in advocating for students, McRae said: “I have a simple question for the highest school administration, (which is) not 'what can you all do to assist our change', but rather 'how much will you resist our change.'" McRae also determined the responsibility of student government. "Diversity is like a pyramid that we stand on top of; we play a key leadership role in a diversifying world," he said, "the changes start with us, literally; we are the natural leaders of our generation." The new team will officially start next fall.