Dan Saleem, a former Student Government Association senator and 2024 presidential candidate, staged his second bid for the presidency last week.
Saleem, a junior studying political science and history, said if elected he’ll press officials to open the Mount Vernon Campus Student Health Center more than one day a week, solicit student input on the SGA finance allocations process and create a GW program and “recipe book” that encourages students to cook healthy meals. He said his slogan, “It’s Time to Do Better,” reflects his objective to work entirely for the students as he embarks on his second-consecutive SGA presidential campaign.
“My slogan, “‘It’s Time To Do Better,’ isn’t just about our student government, it’s about us as a community, and my personal journey,” Saleem said in a text message.
Saleem lost the SGA presidential election last year to current SGA President Ethan Fitzgerald after receiving only 13 percent of the vote in the first round of ranked-choice voting. He said after taking a break from the SGA for a few months following the election, he realized there is more to life than the SGA and spent the year learning more about what students want from the governing body.
“I needed to learn what students wanted, and I needed to learn the issues that really affected them on a day-to-day basis,” Saleem said.
Last year, Saleem pleaded guilty to a quartet of campaign violations for campaigning prior to the official campaign period. The Joint Elections Commissions initially issued Saleem six penalty points, enough to disqualify him from the election but ended up dropping one of the charges, which allowed Saleem to remain on the ballot ahead of the April election.
Saleem said he will have an open door policy at all SGA Finance Committee meetings, noting that the past three SGA administrations have held all finance meetings closed off to the public to discuss student organizations’ requests before presenting the final budget at a public SGA Senate meeting. He said he would issue an executive order to make the meetings public because students deserve a first-hand look at the funding allocations process for their organizations.
Saleem said he believes nothing has changed over the past three SGA administrations’ approaches to issues, like reproductive health care, dining and free speech. He said former leaders haven’t been able to have “tough conversations” about the SGA presidency and communicate with University administration.
“Frankly, if you’re not ready to have tough conversations about what’s going on in U-Yard, about what’s happening to our school, then frankly, you shouldn’t be president,” Saleem said. “If you want to be president, you need to be ready to have those conversations, and you need to be ready to accept responsibility for being the voice of the students.”
Saleem said the main issue he hopes to tackle during his presidency is on-campus dining. He said his experience as a member of the Student Advisory Panel — a group of students chosen by dining administration who meet with GW dining officials once per month — will help him revive the SGA Senate Committee on Dining, which he pushed forward in 2023 to ensure that students don’t have to “gamble” with their dining options and risk issues, like food poisoning. He said the current committee has “no teeth” because they come to the SAP meetings and fail to discuss issues that affect the greater GW community, like the continuity of food offered at GW dining locations.
Saleem said he will work to make Plan B free for students through the on campus vending machines by allocating $6,000 or more of his executive budget to the goal. Currently, the price of Plan B currently stands at $5 after SGA collaborated with GW Reproductive and Gender Equity to help lower the previous price of $15 last year.
“That is a basic right that all students need, especially on a college campus,” Saleem said.
Saleem said he wants to make communication between the executive and legislative branches within the SGA a “top priority” by ensuring the president and vice president sit in on all executive cabinet and senate committee meetings, which he said they currently don’t do. He said increased inter-branch communication will ensure the president and vice president are aware of each other’s initiatives, something he said has lacked in previous SGA terms.
“The president should be sending at least one, if not two, representatives from their cabinet, even if it’s them themselves, to listen in on committee meetings,” Saleem said.
Saleem posted Instagram stories last week where he denied Title IX allegations made against him during last year’s election. In a story post, he wrote that he never had official charges brought against him, stating that none of the claims made against him were “legitimate or fact based.” Saleem added a screenshot of an email from the Title IX office, which read that there is no “disciplinary record” associated with his name at GW.
Saleem said he served as a sexual assault and sexual harassment officer during his time in the military prior to attending GW, where he was responsible for conducting investigations into sexual misconduct cases, as well as providing support to victims.
“I intend to be open about this this year because, the truth is, I wasn’t the year before,” Saleem said in a text message. “Being a victim of sexual violence myself, it sickens me that nobody bothered to check and ask if these rumors were really legit and just went along with it.”
Saleem has collected the needed 379 petition signatures and received verification from the Joint Elections Committee to appear on the official SGA election ballot on April 10 and 11.
