Name: Prince Ghosh

Year: Class of 2019

Major: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Running for: VP of Academic Affairs

What are your plans for the position?
Through this position, I intend to address problems regarding smart vs. busy work, general education requirements, uses of learning spaces, and the need aware vs need blind issue.

What projects are you hoping to pursue should you get the position that would directly affect the student body in the next year?
Over the course of my term if elected, an immediate project I hope to accomplish is reinvigorating our active learning classrooms and general learning spaces. A short term goal includes keeping a constant supply of dry erase markers in Wade, Village Study rooms, and freshman dorms that can be used 24 hours a day, and replacing old tables and chairs in learning environments with new furniture. A possible long term goal includes getting desktop computers in Wade so that students with laptop problems or specific program needs don’t have to make the trip to the engineering quad to access these necessities.

SAGES is often a topic of debate among the student body, and is currently under review by a committee led by the provost. What, if anything, would you like to see happen with the program?
I’d like to see changes to the SAGES program that allows students to learn material they’re interested in by a professor with a deep background in the material. All too often in the current SAGES program, professors are teaching material outside of their domain of expertise which leads to inattentiveness and disengagement from the material. I’d also like the connection between first seminar advisor and student to extend past that first SAGES course and create a channel of discussion and advice until the student receives their major advisor.

Do you think that CWRU should switch to need-aware admissions?
I do not believe that CWRU should switch to need-aware admissions. Each and every single student at CWRU has indescribable capability to change the world and are here not because of their income, but because they were able to prove to Case Western that they deserved a spot amongst people changing the way we think. By switching to need-aware admissions and accepting students based on family income, I believe we dishonor what it means to be a Case Western Reserve Spartan and stop valuing what is truly important.

With the VP of Academic Affairs sitting on the Faculty Senate, how do you plan on communicating student needs to faculty and administration? Do you think that student concerns are currently being heard by the Faculty Senate?
If voted into office, I plan on communicating student needs to faculty and administration by a series of direct quantitative and qualitative survey results. I hope to make these surveys more frequent in order to address as much of the undergraduate population as possible. I hope to bring back relatable figures and statements to the faculty senate in order to enact change directly for what the people want, and do so in the shortest amount of time possible.