As the Behrend Student Government Association (SGA) president steps down after two years in office, students will not soon forget the mark that he left on this campus.

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        Moustafa Elhadary, senior software engineer major, took on the role of SGA president in the fall of 2015 after holding the position of senator in the organization for two years. But SGA has never been his only involvement on campus. Elhadary has also held the positions of president of the International Student Organization (ISO) and treasurer of the Multicultural Council (MCC). He also was a Resident Assistant and helped to found two clubs on campus, Model United Nations (MUN) and Diverse Organization of Photo & Video Enthusiasts (DOPE).

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        Because of his diverse involvement at Behrend, by the time he decided to run for SGA president, Elhadary had a vast array of friends. To him, it made sense to run in order to represent all of these friends. With experience as both a resident and a commuter, as well as being an RA, there was no other question. “I think the fact that I knew a good amount of students, I felt like I would be an appropriate representative,” he states.

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        But taking on this new role was no walk in the park. During his first semester in office, Elhadary had a steep learning curve. He quickly had to learn who to talk to, how to handle situations, and how to deal with conflict. Since then, he has learned that, as someone who represents the students of Behrend, it is appropriate to push his luck. When the students had something that they wanted, he was never afraid to speak up and bring their voices to attention.

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        For two years of what he considers success, he owes it all to the helping hands of those who were by his side along the way. “I do less work this year – way less work. But we’ve done like 5 to 10 times as much as we did last year,” he shares. “So I’m honestly pretty proud of what we’ve done.”

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But this delegating in no way means that Elhadary is a slacking president. Instead, he gets to let the other members become more involved, making them feel more relevant to the organization. In turn, he becomes even more proud of everything that SGA has accomplished as a team. He wouldn’t want it any other way.

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“Things that are happy on the outside are not always happy on the inside, right?” he asks. While the members have had a lot of conflicts, they have learned to deal with them civilly in order to improve their output as an organization. In terms of navigating these conflicts as a leader, Elhadary has dealt a large number of them. “I’ve done it fantastically, I’ve done it terribly. But you live and learn,” he states. “I’ve embarrassed myself quite a bit.”

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One of his fondest memories of his time with SGA is in planning the Correspondence dinner this year. One of his friends had asked him why this organization did not previously had a formal similar to the ones that other large clubs or organizations have on campus. The first aim at a spirit week last year was a massive failure, causing the dinner to be planned with a different approach this year.

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With 320 people in attendance, this dinner was even better than expected. Even more exciting for Elhadary, it was essentially the formal that his friend was looking for. “She was thrilled, like she was happy. It was nice knowing that ‘Hey, even if it was for one person we delivered on that.’”

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While he is proud of everything that he has accomplished while being in office, leaving presidency will not be then end of his mark on the organization. The new president, JP Jarecki will be taking over after the last day of finals this semester when Elhadary officially leaves office. The current organizational leaders are working hard to put everything in order before Jarecki takes over. Their biggest task is to put together a 50 to 60 page report of everything that they have done this year for each position. The president’s tasks take up 10 of these pages. The basis of this report is to give the next executive board a head start.

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Elhadary has faith in the new leaders that will be stepping up for next year. “We’re giving them a heads up so if they mess up that’s really on them because we’ve done our parts,” he jokingly concludes.