SSWANA

UC Berkeley junior transfer student Giancarlo Fernandez was unanimously voted into office by the ASUC Senate as the executive vice president of the ASUC in a meeting Sept. 15.

Campus sophomore Aasim Yahya is running for ASUC Senate as the candidate endorsed by the Middle Eastern Muslim Sikh and South Asian Coalition in order to help members of the MEMSSA community find their place on campus.

While Dor Chavoinik initially moved into a Jewish co-op to cut down on housing costs, living in faith-centered housing has strengthened her religious and cultural identity, providing her with an understanding and accommodating community.

This spring marks the first instance in which the campus administration will grant religious accommodations for the Islamic holiday Ramadan, which this year lasts from May 5 to June 4 — in the middle of which fall final exams.

ASUC External Affairs Vice President, or EAVP, Nuha Khalfay won the Kenneth Priestley Award at UC Berkeley’s Inaugural Dean of Students Outstanding Leadership Awards on Tuesday.

There are thriving communities that exist well outside of restrictive images of what Muslims should look like or be like, and many of those communities are part of the larger Muslim community here on campus as well — and we are better with them.

After the ASUC Senate convened its first meetings as the inter-semester committee this past summer, senators have heralded the experiment a success for student representation.

At its inter-semester committee meeting Thursday, the ASUC Senate unanimously passed two bills to increase support for the communities affected by the recent deaths of two UC Berkeley students in terror attacks abroad.

Two campus sophomores, John Bosshard and Alaa Aissi, recently announced their intent to run as independent ASUC Senate candidates in the spring 2016 elections.