Queen Mufty-Raini is a junior at Georgia State running for Atlanta’s seat for Speaker of the Senate.
Mufty-Raini was involved in her high school’s Student Government Association and hoped to bring her leadership experience to Georgia State. Though she hasn’t held office at a collegiate level, she believes she has the expertise to get the job done.
“I’ve always been that person to run for SGA and Homecoming,” she said. “I thought that I would be the same person in college.”
When campaigning, Mufty-Raini primarily used social media and her memberships in campus organizations like Collegiate 100 and PantherLeap to spread the word about her run for office.
“I used my social media to campaign by making different posts and flyers,” she said. “I’m also very involved on campus, and [I’m always] walking up to [students] and tell[ing] them about myself to get my name out there.”
Her objective as Speaker of the Senate is as literal as it gets: speak for the people.
“I really hope I’m able to be the voice for college students,” she said. “I hope to see different things happening on campus, especially since we’ll be in person in the fall.”
Mufty-Raini is making it a priority to increase student involvement on campus. Her entire campaign revolves around finding ways to bring students together. She plans to do this by targeting students who don’t have a sense of belonging at Georgia State and help them find their way.
“I want to start by creating an organization for students on campus who feel like they don’t fit in anywhere,” she said. “I want us to use the Student Center more. I feel like people don’t get a campus feel at Georgia State, but I want them to get that feeling.”
Mufty-Raini’s most urgent point of action is changing the atmosphere in the student centers. She dislikes that most people go there to get something to eat, then leave and go about their day. She wants the student centers to incorporate a higher sense of community among students.
“Maybe I can host events like ‘Jeopardy’ or raffle tickets because I’m sure people would want to participate in that,” she said. “I’d want them to do surveys so I can see what [students] want on campus.”
Her final strategy to increase student involvement on campus is an ambitious one; she wants to create digital software to inform students about upcoming campus events.
“I don’t feel like people get college updates,” she said. “So if I could have a way for everyone to be informed about everything that’s going on, I’d create something like that.”
When posed with the possibility that Outlook and Panther Involvement Network already implement one of her strategies, Mufty-Raini believes that most students don’t regularly check them.
“Maybe I can have a software where people have to text back so I know they’ve seen the message,” she said. “That will take a lot, but I’ll look into it.”
