President and VP candidates
Bios
Scott Franco (President)
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Hi everyone! My name is Scott Franco and I’m a rising fourth year Marketing & Management Information Systems student. I’ve spent the past three years going through everything from a major switch to starting my own club, and I am confident that I have the crucial understanding of RIT I need to succeed. I worked for Meta to identify business leads in Rochester they could help cultivate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in, and gained a fundamental understanding of the area through it. I’m the Saunders College of Business Senator for 2022-2023, and lead an advisory board of student leaders in SCB to help shape the future of the college as we expand. Additionally, I help make and advise academic policy change through the Academic Affairs committee I sit on, and I'm the only student representative on the Financial Literacy team, working to promote and educate our student body on personal finance before they enter the workforce. I want to leave our campus in a better state than it was when I enrolled, and being President will let me accomplish that. Please reach out to me with any comments or questions, I look forward to connecting with you all!
Leah Dibble (VP)
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Hello everyone! My name is Leah Dibble and I am a rising fourth year Computer Science student. Having faced many Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion challenges, I am passionate about working to improve DEI wherever I can. I've presented on the struggles women pursuing STEM face on behalf of Amazon at a CS Educators Conference, and work with Amazon to develop their Future Engineer Program. Now, I instruct and teach in the RIT K-12 office to make STEM careers accessible and achievable for students in the Rochester area. Additionally, I'm the Women's Senator in Student Government for 2022-2023, and am a part of the President's Commission on Women and many other organizing bodies. I've worked with the Dean's office in GCCIS to work to make the college welcoming and inclusive for female identifying students. I'm invested in creating an environment where learning isn't intimidating, and being Vice President can make my goals reality. Please reach out with any inquiries or questions, I’d love to connect with all of you!
Platform
Platform Video
Scott
Hi. My name is Scott Franco.
Leah
And I'm Leah Dibble.
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Scott
And were running to be your student government president.
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Leah
And vice president.
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Scott
The first year experience here at RIT for freshmen and transfer students leaves them unsupported and confused. That's why we're going to work to redesign the course from the ground up and incorporate lessons on topics that they both want and need to learn.
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Leah
RIT should not be making it actively harder to learn. We will achieve equitable access to education by holding our administrators and faculty accountable while they're designing courses.
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Scott
RIT may be the breeding grounds for tomorrow's engineers, but our non-technical students are just as crucial in forming that tomorrow. That's why I'm going to be working with Career Services and RIT to create a plan of action to market the unique skill set we bring to the table and get employers and opportunities here on campus so our students can get that experience they chose RIT for.
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Scott
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Speaker 3
RIT says it's ready to take on more women, but this is simply not the truth. Our decision makers are unaware of the challenges that female identifying students face on this campus, and we want to bring female identifying students into the fold during decision making and tackle these incorrect perceptions. I am also actively working to bring together all the women identifying clubs and organizations to create one consolidated voice.
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Leah
On top of this, I would like to tackle the stigma surrounding Title IX and
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Leah
regain the trust of our students.
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Scott
I am Hispanic and frankly speaking, this campus is too white. Administration needs to realize that ALANA students need support throughout their journey here at RIT. Not just enrollment. I'm going to empower our student leaders from diverse ALANA backgrounds to be able to contribute and make policy changes regarding ALANA communities.
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Leah
It's been 60 years since RIT and NTID came together, but the social gap hasn't really closed at all. We will be working with our deaf and hard of hearing community to create guidelines for clubs to promote inclusivity in their events and meetings. On top of that, we will be requiring student government to go through basic ASL and deaf culture trainings to ensure that we can communicate with our whole constituency.
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Scott
Decision makers at RIT. Need to be better informed and better inform the student body before they make changes that affect us. So we want to have them sit down periodically at different places like Commons and other dining restaurants so that way they can have discussions on why they make the changes they do and learn about what the student experience is like before they make those changes.
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Leah
We have begun working on our platform, but we need your help to make it a reality. With your vote, we can tackle these major issues plaguing students on campus.
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Scott
We want to make RIT the right choice, but we need your feedback. Do you have any comments or suggestions? Feel free to reach out to us. We'd be happy to sit down and chat about your experiences here at RIT.
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Leah
Thanks for listening. We hope you'll vote Scott
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Scott
and Leah for Student Government, President.
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Leah
And Vice President.