By TIPHERET PEÑA/Murphy News Service
Sitting inside the Minnesota Student Association’s (MSA) private office past dark on a Sunday night, Undergraduate Student Body Vice President Abeer Syedah faces a computer, monitoring social media, seemingly unable to pull away from her work, even on the day after she suffered a concussion from a crash in an Uber car.
“It’s not a big deal, I’m not hurt really, and they refunded me once I called them,” Syedah said.
As vice president, Syedah is used to putting others’ needs before her own.
She has made her presence known throughout her college career by taking leadership roles that consistently represent students and marginalized communities.
“I am really attracted to governance and other power systems that change things,” Syedah said. “I always have been.”
Syedah’s involvement in student affairs in her three years at the university stretches far beyond her experience in MSA.
She has served on the board of directors at the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG), was a residence hall representative for the Sexual Health and Disease Education (SHADE) group, worked as a Community Advisor (CA) in Middlebrook Hall in the Students Crossing Borders Living Learning Community and as an admissions tour guide at the university.
Syedah said that out of all of those positions being a CA is the hardest job on campus, even harder than being the vice president of the student body. “Wanting to be a good CA I felt like, took more out of me than this does, and this takes a lot out of me.”
She said that in some ways the CA position helped prepare her for her current role. She had to learn quickly that representing the university was not a role into which she could step in and out.
“One of the things that was hard about being in Housing (and Residential Life) was that you couldn’t really have a personal life because it was out there for your residents,” she said. “Take that and explode it by 28,000 people, and that’s what being VP is now.”
“I can’t imagine a better co-CA to work with than Abeer,” Jane Sitter, a senior at the U and Syedah’s former CA partner in Middlebrook, said.
“As CAs we become great multitaskers – we advised a community of around 62 students of diverse backgrounds and interests, and developed relationships with them and an authentic interest in their individual well being,” Sitter said. “This broad skillset of managing a lot of different tasks could likely have been a beneficial experience to support her dynamic role as the student body vice president.”
Syedah was born in Canada to Pakistani immigrants and moved to the U.S. when she was 7. She attended 16 different schools in her 12 years of primary education before graduating from Keller Central High School in Keller, Texas, in 2013.
Syedah decided to attend the University of Minnesota to be closer to her family members, who were living in Minnesota. She is studying political science and gender, women and sexuality studies (GWSS).
“I grew up very strong-headed, I was pretty similar to how I am today as like a 5-year-old,” she said. “I was loud when people didn’t want me to be, I spoke up when people didn’t want me to speak up.”
“My mom used to tell me stories about how when I was 4, if anyone called me cute, I physically hurt them as a kid,” Syedah said. “I just pushed them or hit them because I thought it was belittling.”
Syedah has certainly grown since then, but she has not lost the voice that she was told so many times to silence.
Those who know Syedah say her commitment and passion for issues surrounding diversity and social justice is unwavering. On her Facebook and Twitter accounts, she consistently challenges issues regarding racism, sexism, police brutality, xenophobia, culture appropriation, mental health stigma and more.
Not only does she discuss these topics online, but she addresses them in her everyday life and in her role as vice president.
“Abeer was a fantastic role model for our students in our living learning community. Many of our students are international and some come from places where there is not a lot of discussion about social justice or race,” Sitter said. “Abeer was ready and willing to have these conversations with our students … and many students have now taken an active role and interest in being involved with social justice initiatives on campus.”
When asked when she first developed her passion for diversity and social justice, however, Syedah said she finds it hard to pinpoint an exact moment.
“It came in phases,” she said. “The initial phase was … very young, Tumblr, white feminism.”
Syedah said growing up in a community which set limitations for what she could and couldn’t do left her with a lot of self-confidence issues and questions of who she was and what was expected of her.
“I had this thought that, like, women should be quiet … I told myself, ‘You need to learn to stop interrupting the adults, let the adults speak, let the men speak,’” she said. “I discovered people who had really great things to say online about why they felt … that’s not true and I found myself resonating with that.”
So Syedah found herself identifying with “younger feminism,” which she said wasn’t academic or intersectional. When she lived in Texas, she learned a lot about people she hadn’t had experiences with before which led her to observe things beyond gender such as race, immigrant status and nationalism.
When she arrived at the U, her interest in feminism led her to take an introductory course in the GWSS department.
“This realization that these GWSS classes, and eventually the ethnic studies classes, were giving me all of this information, all of these lenses, all of this history, all of these interpretations that I was so peeved I didn’t have growing up because I think they would have radically shifted my love for myself and my ability to understand who I was,” Syedah said.
Syedah said her introduction to many of these topics became a very personal experience, as she began to understand and reflect on her own identities and experiences in ways she had never been able to before.
When asked how her passion for diversity and social justice has affected her experience as a student at the U, Syedah said “I think it has been my experience.”
Lesley Schneider, a senior at the U, vividly remembers meeting Syedah for the first time at a CA workshop in the spring of 2014.
“She smiled widely at me, motioned to her name tag as I was situating myself at the table, and said, ‘I’m Abeer – like a Corona.’ We became fast friends through the next six hours,” she said.
Schneider has been able to see Syedah’s work in social justice manifest itself in her role as a student, fellow CA and now as vice president in MSA.
“Abeer dedicates every one of her spare moments to bring visibility to important social issues,” Schneider said. “As student body vice president, she supports every student, but goes the extra mile for the students who often face prejudice and discrimination on our campus.”
Syedah first heard about MSA on the university’s Wikipedia page and then recalled receiving a newsletter from the U which said the organization was looking for interns. She applied and was interviewed by current Student Body President Joelle Stangler. She got the position.
Syedah continued to move forward in MSA and last year was elected as ranking at-large representative.
Toward the end of fall semester in 2014, Stangler had to contemplate whether she would run for president again and who she would run with, as her vice president at the time would be graduating in the spring of 2015.
“She kind of just brought it up to me,” Syedah said. “I didn’t really have a hesitation to that … I wanted to be somebody who was in charge of more and like had more flexibility to pursue what I wanted but also like now begin guiding people.”
Syedah said she was also adamant about wanting to represent people and make sure MSA’s value for diversity was reflected in its administration.
“We had had years of white administrations,” she said. “The last time a woman of color was elected into either role was 1991 and nothing since … We’re talking about diversity and I want to see even more.”
“I can bring the experiences of students who often are not talked about in bodies like ours,” Syedah said.
Syedah does admit, however, that the job is much harder than she expected. She enjoys knowing she has the ability to influence others and create action, but has also had to deal with the pressures of being a representative and voice for the university and its students.
“Everything I do is being watched, everything I do is critiqued,” she said. “It’s really new now to be criticized by people who don’t know me.”
Syedah mentioned that when the MSA’s decision on a resolution to honor the anniversary of 9/11 was announced, people sent her screenshots of comment sections and Yik Yak posts where people were directly speaking about her.
Syedah and Stangler are non-voting members of the forum so she didn’t vote on anything regarding the resolution. Instead, Syedah guided the resolution when it came to the policy committee and gave suggestions.
“The resolution that was initially voted on did not reflect any of those recommendations,” she said.
Syedah also had to decide if and how she would incorporate and advocate for issues surrounding diversity and social justice in her new role.
“I had the conversation with Joelle (Stangler) … I said that one of the reasons I want to be vice president is I want to represent people who haven’t been represented in this body for a long time,” she said. “I can’t do that if I pretend like I am not constantly aware of and acknowledging and experiencing power and systems of power and discrimination and injustice.”
“I’m not gonna stop with social justice, I might maybe tone down my rhetoric or pick and choose my battles but I’m not gonna shut that away,” Syedah said.
With everything that has happened at home and abroad lately, the past month and a half have especially taken their tole on Syedah, who had to discover what it means to be a leader in times of crisis.
“I recognize and am learning what it means to be a person who’s still expected to be a leader all the time,” she said. “To some people, you’re not just a person, you are a little bit of a political figure and they’re expecting you to say something or do something.”
“I think Abeer is a fantastic vice president and an admirable representation of the U,” Schneider said. “She’s professional and holds herself to a high ethical standard, she works incredibly hard everyday, she’s strong, she’s insightful, she’s funny, she’s genuinely herself – who could ask for more than that?”
Moving forward, Syedah said she had to learn how to create more of a brand for herself. She began phrasing social justice themes in a greater scheme, talking more about MSA publicly and on social media and wearing business casual on a daily basis.
Becoming vice president has also required Syedah to supervise and guide other people in topics outside of diversity and social justice. As vice president, she oversees all the committee directors and their work surrounding sustainability, infrastructure, grants and so on.
Currently, MSA is working toward changes to mental health policies, such as changes to the bereavement policy, implementing a fall break before Thanksgiving and creating a Moodle site for mental health resources; promoting the new affirmative consent policy; working on organics recycling and reducing food waste on campus; creating a shuttle to grocery stores for students on the weekends; reviewing the diversity and social justice liberal education requirement; working on the medical amnesty policy and its relation to housing and expanding gender-neutral housing, among other things.
As vice president, Syedah works as the direct liaison to all students and supervises MSA’s seven committees, three more than the organization had in previous years.
Learning how to supervise the committee leaders, encouraging them to take care of themselves and making sure they know that every step they take forward is a success has been one of Syedah’s biggest challenges in her role.
“The hardest part has just been navigating the growing pains and accepting and sharing with other people … that your success is not coming from the completion of every single thing,” she said.
On the other hand, she said the most exciting part of her position has been seeing all of the changes that have taken place on campus in the last semester. Syedah said she is proud of all the work MSA has accomplished and everything its members are working toward.
“People need to feel successful. These are some cool things!” she said.
Syedah may be used to taking leadership roles, but said that doesn’t mean she’s done growing.
“Everyone changes and grows all the time, and as vice president I think Abeer has learned and grown as a person, but mainly she’s just tired a lot, because being a representative and support system of 50,000 people makes you sleepy,” Schneider said.
“I love this role, I’m so happy I’m in it … but it’s definitely harder than anyone thinks,” Syedah said.
Reporter Tipheret Peña is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.