Returning RSU ISA President: My Priorities are Flexible Studies and a Vibrant Student Community

The Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) International Student Association (ISA) elections were held on 10 November 2021. Both the President Mohamed Naleef Ahamed Mazhar, and the Public Relations Officer Hussaina Musaji were re-elected for a second term. In this interview, both of them look back at their achievements and outline the association's goals for the upcoming year.

New 2022 RSU ISA Board Elected

In your interview last year after being elected President for the first time, you said you wanted to improve campus life at RSU. How has that played out over the last year?

RSU Board Members at Wordwide event in 2021 (Hussaina, second from left, Naleef, on the right)

Naleef: I think it was going well at some moments. Worldwide was one of our great successes, even though the turnout was only about 150 students (in its heyday the event could gather around 400 people!). It just made us feel like there was still a campus life left and it made us realise what to focus on in 2022.

A problem we're seeing right now is that a lot of students don't actually view RSU as a university anymore, but see it as just another online degree.

I don't know whether Latvia has a lot of those, but in some countries online degrees are a huge business.

Students at RSU Wordwide in the autumn of 2021 just before a renewed lockdown

How do you cultivate a campus when people can't meet in person?

Naleef: That will always be a problem, I think, especially in a field as traditional as medicine where virtual learning can't fully replace in-person studies. Right now, students just need to be in the same place. Some study groups haven't even met each other! There's this staggering isolation between people within their groups.

What are the benefits of being on the ISA board for a second year?

Hussaina: For me, it's continuity. I am happy that I get to see the new website project through to the end. It feels good to have another year to continue developing it and making it the best it can be. We've decided not to use Facebook anymore and focus on the website instead, so it's important to make it as available to students as possible.

Walk me through the changes you've implemented.

Hussaina: The website we've designed is a place where the international students at RSU can find all the necessary information about the societies and sports teams we have, it's where they can find help with academic issues, and see an archive of past events.

We also have a section that is kind of like a student market where people can post if they're looking for a place to live, or for a flatmate. If they need help academically, they can find students who can help them with tutoring here. It's a well-rounded website available on MyRSU for anything a student might need.

Naleef: The website is one of the big reasons for why I stayed as well. Another is consistency. A lot of behind-the-scenes work went into the website and I wanted to make sure that there was continuity. I feel that ISA has never had much consistency, because there is change every year. The board always tries to do things in the same way without giving it too much thought, or improving on existing practises.

What have you learned in the last year that you can keep improving on, or have you made any mistakes that you can learn from?

Naleef: I've learned more about the communication hierarchy at the university, the problem solving hierarchy we have. We were told that we had to go through the RSU Student Union (Studējošo pašpārvalde, SP) or address faculty counsellors, but over the last year we realised that we could skip most of the steps, most of the back and forth and the bureaucracy, and just go directly to the Vice-Rector, or the Dean to tell them what isn't working.

Something we want to focus on this year is to find ways to nip problems in the bud before they grow bigger.

Hussaina: Communication within my office has been quite bad. I have come to realise that we need consistent and clear communication between ISA and SP so that we are on the same page. I don't want to have to keep coming to them to ask if they're about to post something and whether they have content in English. I need to maintain stable communication and make sure that all the information that is published in Latvian is also published in English. All information needs to be accessible for everyone.

What are your top priorities this year?

Naleef: It's honestly just to bring students back to the university and to make RSU feel like a university again.

RSU Worldwide 2021 in Inspiration Park

Hopefully students see the benefits of being present, but there's a high chance that many think that they just pay money and get a degree and leave. 

Hussaina: I feel like a lot of people have become lethargic after being online for two years. This might especially be a problem for the older semesters. They've done so much online by now that they don't see a point in coming back and learning things in person, which is quite sad, because we're about to enter a very practical profession. I feel like we need to get the university atmosphere going again, show that we have students, events, that there are things going on. We want to give them added value so that it's not just an online course. 

What do you think is keeping students from coming to Latvia?

Naleef: While the pandemic continues and students are given the option of learning online or studying in person, not all of them will want to or be able to return for a variety of reasons. There are different attitudes and opinions affecting students' choices. Some worry about their safety because the Latvian healthcare system can't accommodate as many hospitalisations as their home countries. They're also not protected by insurance if they're in Latvia, so they'd rather stay in their home countries and get treatment there, even if they would want to study in person. Other students might just be lethargic, or pessimistic about onsite classes. They feel that studying person doesn't add much to their education if they have to travel 40 minutes to Gaiļezers, sit in a class for an hour, not meet patients, and then travel back for 40 minutes. There are, however, definitely students who want onsite classes and will definitely come back.

Hussaina: This is very individual. Some people feel that they learn more sitting in an auditorium and others prefer listening at home at their own pace.

Most of these decisions are at the university's discretion. What can you as an organisation do to encourage students to come back?

Naleef: We're lobbying management. Together with RSU SP we have constantly been lobbying about having classes onsite. We've raised the issue that there need to be clear conditions for why something is moved online and clearer regulations for being onsite. The university has been very receptive to our ideas so far. In addition to that, we are trying to plan onsite events for those that are here in order to keep them here.

Hussaina: Keep them entertained a little bit and make them feel like they have a life here in Latvia.

Naleef: Those are our two goals for this year: lobbying the university for flexible onsite studies, and showing our fellow students that the student community at RSU is alive and active. This is at the core of everything that we've been doing.

Stalls at RSU Worldwide 2021

What students expect from the university could be summed up as "extreme flexibility". The idea would be that all teachers, all departments, and all classes have the ability to execute blended, or hybrid studies, so that in case someone is actually sick with Covid, they can attend online while others attend on site. That would be the ideal scenario.

What's important to the international student community at RSU?

Naleef: Stability. But that's out of anyone's hands at the moment.

The new RSU ISA website is available to students via MyRSU.