Editor’s Note: VP candidate Fatimah Yousaf is a member of Retrograde staff and has published two articles since joining the outlet. Retrograde policy requires that all candidates are treated the same irrespective of their backgrounds. Both VP candidates were asked the same set of questions about their platform and opposing tickets during SG’s Nov. 11 speed campaigning event.
Student Government is holding a fall special election starting Nov. 30 and running until Dec. 2. If a runoff is needed, it will be held Dec. 4. The online ballot, which will be emailed to all current students, will allow UTD students to vote on the new SG vice president and on an amendment to the SG constitution.
The race for VP
Current SG vice president and computer science senior Farhan Iqbal is graduating in December, leaving the role empty in the spring. Two candidates have stepped forward to compete for the seat — SG Secretary and neuroscience sophomore Fatimah Yousaf is up against Green Initiative Chair and supply chain management junior Colton Rupe. The winner of the special election will serve the remainder of Iqbal’s term alongside President and neuroscience senior David Baker.
Who is Colton Rupe?
Rupe has centered his campaign around what he calls “a trifecta of issues”: improving students’ everyday lives, defending student rights and expression and promoting student organizations.
His proposals include a course-cost indicator flagging software subscription expenses before students register, a compiled directory of underused campus resources, regular meetings with the administrators who oversee speech-related decisions and a biweekly spotlight highlighting different student organizations.
“Overall, I just wanna fight for the students and make their lives better,” Rupe said. “I promise that if I’m elected as your vice president, I will do my best to do everything in my power to make sure that every part of my platform is met.”
Rupe said he feels qualified for the role of vice president because of his accomplishments as an SG chair and senator — including the launching of the Green Fund and the graduation gown closet, which lets students borrow caps and gowns rather than pay for them. Rupe said that even as an SG executive he was still “cut out of a lot of high-level meetings” with university leadership, and that the vice presidency would give him the standing to advocate directly for students in those rooms with the highest ranking university officials.
“I know how to get projects started. I know how to get initiatives done, but when it comes to this advocacy, this advocacy at the top is kind of where I’ve been hindered,” Rupe said. “I’m not here to be aggressive or anything. I’m just here to be like, this is what the students are feeling. How can we work together to bridge that gap?”
Rupe said he planned to focus on defending student expression on campus, pointing to recent controversies including the removal of a pride wall and the Spirit rocks, and to what he described as a lack of explanation from administrators when such decisions are made. Rupe said he would hold biweekly or monthly meetings with the administrators who enforce those decisions, both to take accountability for the past and to find alternatives going forward.
Rupe also suggested that SG needs to do more to promote student organizations and help students — particularly commuters — find community on campus, noting that many students tell him they can’t figure out what there is to do around campus. He said he wants to push for more funding in the student organization center, arguing that a larger fund would make approvals easier for clubs.
“If we have more money in the fund, it’ll make approvals more easy,” Rupe said. “Sometimes you don’t know what’s gonna click for you.”
Who is Fatimah Yousaf?
Yousaf has centered her campaign around expanding student voices on campus, appointing more students to university-wide committees, expanding internship access, increased university budget transparency and a defense of free speech and protest rights on campus.
“Student Government can make a huge impact at UTD,” Yousaf said. “We are given so much power to talk to campus executives about what the student body wants and needs, and I hope to use my platform to act on that.”
Yousaf said she feels uniquely qualified for the role of vice president because she currently serves as the SG secretary and is deeply familiar with the executive tasks she would be required to do. Yousaf also said that she would be continuing projects she already led, like the Budget Breakdown Committee, just with more authority. Yousaf said that getting administrators to share information or resources has always been a challenge, but that she hopes to create a new platform for students to directly engage with university leadership to get the answers they have about how their campus works.
Yousaf said she planned to place a special focus on supporting international students, particularly in regards to navigating internships, because — at least in the meetings she was having with international students — too many students felt like they couldn’t engage with this part of being a college student without risking their visa status. Yousaf said she recently met with a group of 17 international students to talk about how the school and SG could better help them navigate visa and internship challenges.
Yousaf also suggested that SG needs to engage in more collaboration with student organizations on campus, and that she was already taking initial steps on this by creating a teams channel with the leaders of 38 different student organizations — a number she said she hoped could grow to represent a majority of the student organizations on campus. Yousaf said this extended to the realm of student activism as well and that, if elected, she would push for SG to reserve spaces for students to protest and express themselves. Yousaf said she hoped that getting SG involved would help limit police violence against students.
“If we work together across organizations, all of our events benefit from more resources, better turnout and a stronger university community,” Yousaf said.
The Retrograde asked each campaign why students should vote for them instead of the other candidate. Rupe said that as of Nov. 11 he was not familiar with Yousaf’s campaign and hoped she published more campaign material online so that they could have a good debate on the points they differed on, but that students should vote for him if they wanted to see constructive change on campus. Yousaf said she felt her campaign was built on more tangible and concrete goals than Rupe’s, and that her election would speed up projects already in the works for SG to protect students and create a stronger culture of inter-organizational collaboration.
Both candidates agree that UTD administrators have taken repressive action against students which needs to be reversed. Yousaf and Rupe, both members of the current Baker and Iqbal administration, have also collaborated on various past SG projects. After a prolonged whisper discussion during its Oct. 13 meeting, the senate agreed that current members of the SG executive team who ran for the vice president position did not have to resign to do so. Regardless of the special election outcomes, Yousaf and Rupe are expected to continue on as SG executives — one will just be the new vice president.
Both candidates have created new Instagram accounts to advertise their campaign and platform, students interested in learning more about the candidates can visit @rupeforvp and @fatimahforvp. As of publication, Rupe and Yousaf had 227 and 211 followers, respectively, on each of their VP accounts. Thus far Yousaf has posted some introductory campaign materials to her account and Rupe has posted a video compiling news coverage from The Retrograde and local TV stations covering the suppression of students at UTD — the video went semi-viral after publication, getting over 34,000 views and 2,000 likes within 24 hours of its publication. Rupe also created a website with his plans if elected.
Constitutional amendment
SG is ostensibly the representative body for all UTD students, as such UTD requires that any changes to SG’s constitution be approved by the student body. SG governing rules do not require a set number of students to vote for amendments to go into effect, they simply require two-thirds of voting students to support the change. In recent years SG has struggled to get students to participate in its elections, with the most recent spring 2026 executive race only reaching 755 votes — that is 2.5% of the total student body. The constitution was last amended Sept. 14, 2023, when the student body approved an attendance point system for senators as well as the removal of the technology committee.
During its Nov. 10, 2026, meeting, the senate passed “Resolution on the amendment of the Student Government Constitution to create a Historian position and update executive responsibilities,” written by Baker. The full text of the resolution is available below. In summary, it establishes a new paid executive role — the historian — to assist with record keeping and leadership transitions. The amendment does not define how much students, if approved by the Student Fee Advisory Committee, will have to pay for the Historian’s stipend, but if the committee rejects the stipend proposal then the vice president and president will each take $250 out of their existing stipends to pay the historian. The proposed amendment was passed with no pushback from the senate.