With his concrete plans and experience, Boris Lipkin has proved himself to be the strongest candidate for Academic Affairs commissioner.
Lipkin proposes to work toward putting course readers online to reduce student costs, and we are confident that his prior work toward this goal indicates his dedication to seeing it through.
Having also worked extensively to create a new business minor, he has demonstrated an ability to cooperate with administration and faculty to address students’ academic needs.
Another focus of his platform is making classes more applicable to students’ future careers. He proposed reviving practical classes that are listed by the registrar, but not currently offered.
Lipkin also plans to help integrate students with their future career paths by expanding internship credit to be available to freshman and sophomores. Currently, credits can only be used by juniors and seniors.
His proposal to host dinner programs on the Hill between graduate students and undergraduates will also prove a valuable learning experience, as graduate students can pass along invaluable firsthand knowledge to students considering further education.
He also is a proponent of capstones, which would help students build proof of more tangible work experience, along with a few other realistic goals for enhancing the academic students’ experience.
Though Jeremiah Garcia has noble goals for increasing the education of diversity and helping students see the creation of minors and specializations they want, he has notably less experience and his goals are less pragmatic.
His plan to create an “Academic Policy Review Task Force” to survey students and evaluate current academic policies seems extremely broad, and highly undefined, leaving voters unsure of what tangible goals or results to expect.
In terms of creating minors, Boris Lipkin has already started work on designing and implementing the business minor. We feel confident he will be able to follow through.