CANDIDATE PROFILE

Nicholas Keller

Candidate for Finance Board Representative

Questions:
1. What experience and qualifications do you have?
2. What is your platform? What do you hope to accomplish if you win?
3. What I really want students to know about me is…. ?

Candidate Responses:
1. All Finance Board representatives “must attend a 3-day, 2-night off-campus retreat just before the fall semester begins.” Whoever is elected will be trained, so the greatest qualification a person can have is commitment. A good Finance Board candidate is a person who wants to excel at their post and has proven through other things that they can do just that if elected. What proves my distinguishing level of commitment is how many things I have taken on in the past and succeed in. I conducted research in high school at a lab at Johns Hopkins where I was recently made a coauthor on a paper about robotic navigation. I got a 4.0 GPA last semester. Lastly, I am a member of the Meyerhoff program and am pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science.

2. If elected I will promote spending that maximizes the happiness of students at UMBC. My focus will be on distributing funds to clubs present and future in a cost effective manner. In real terms this means looking at the cost of a potential club in relation to the number of people that will benefit from it. More accurately, I will focus on the cost per person of a club. I will maintain funding for currently existing clubs regardless of their cost effectiveness,  except in extreme circumstances, because of the harm caused by eliminating a club whose members have become invested in it. In summary, I will maintain funding for existing clubs and distribute the remaining money by determining how additional funds for existing clubs or money for new clubs would increase the happiness of UMBC's students.

3. I'm a highly motivated person who you can benefit from if I am elected to the Finance Board. I got a 4.0 last semester. I'm a member of the Meyerhoff program and am pursing a Ph.D. in computer science. I am a coauthor on a paper about robotic navigation.  I want this job because I want to increase the effectiveness of the SGA's distribution of funds to clubs.   

Brief Platform Statement:

  • I will increase funding for current clubs.
  • I will promote the funding of new clubs.
  • I will let my desire to improve the SGA's effectiveness guide me in all of my decisions.