{"id":168480,"date":"2026-02-25T11:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/168480\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T11:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:54:08","slug":"hunter-rabinowitz-and-mia-riley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/168480\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunter Rabinowitz and Mia Riley"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>Presidential candidate Hunter Rabinowitz to the left and his running mate, Mia Riley, to the right. ORACLE PHOTO\/AUDREY KOCZANSKI<\/p>\n

Hunter Rabinowitz and Mia Riley have worked together as assistants in the Dean\u2019s Office of USF\u2019s College of Behavioral and Community Sciences<\/a> since fall 2024 \u2014 and now they\u2019re running a Student Government presidential campaign together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work very well together professionally, so we thought it really made sense to do this together as well,\u201d Rabinowitz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rabinowitz is running for student body president with Riley as his vice president.<\/p>\n

Rabinowitz, a 19-year-old sophomore marketing major, is an SG senator who serves as the ethics committee chair and as vice chair of the activity and service fee recommendation committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Riley, a 20-year-old junior biology major, has never held a position in SG. Still, she said leadership roles have always been part of her life from elementary through high school.<\/p>\n

She also has two positions \u2014 accountability and support \u2014 in her sorority, Kappa Delta<\/a> at USF, where she ensures sisters remain accountable for their actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re there to support each other as people,\u201d Riley said. \u201cI truly feel that being the higher person causes a lot of trust within everyone else who\u2019s coming to me, and I have to sit there and listen with an unbiased mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rabinowitz said the ticket works because it combines both an inside and outside perspective to represent the student body as one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that balance is so important, as well as since I\u2019m an in-state student and Mia is an out-of-state student, we represent more students,\u201d Rabinowitz said.<\/p>\n

Rabinowitz and Riley said they plan to implement and stand by three pillars \u2014 collaboration, safety and streamlining SG processes for student organizations.<\/p>\n

Related: USF SG shares tips for submitting A&S budget requests as deadline nears<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Riley said overcoming homesickness as an out-of-state student from New York is one of the reasons she decided to run.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just really think that I can make a difference and help those people who maybe feel the same and didn\u2019t know if they would fit in at USF, or make it so far from home,\u201d Riley said.<\/p>\n

As for Rabinowitz, running for student body president offers him a chance to give back what USF has given him through education and resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always kind of been drawn to trying to be in positions where I can help others and create things, promote student engagement, and promote positive campus experience,\u201d Rabinowitz said.<\/p>\n

Rabinowitz and Riley said they both live on campus, in the Greek Village and Kappa Delta sorority house, respectively.<\/p>\n

Rabinowitz said that as student residents, they have a better understanding of student struggles and complaints.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just normal students,\u201d Rabinowitz said. \u201cWe feel the struggles, we live and breathe them every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rabinowitz said the first pillar of their campaign focuses on increasing collaboration between SG cabinets and student organizations across all three campuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe average student doesn\u2019t know much about Student Government, so we should really try to get ourselves out there more and promote the resources that we provide that students don\u2019t use that much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Their second pillar is campus safety, which Riley said would be promoted through an optional once-a-semester self-defense class for students offered in partnership with University Police.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing as an out-of-state student or coming as an international student, you might not know the area as well,\u201d Riley said. \u201cPersonally, I would love to do a self-defense class.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third pillar of their campaign is to create a program called \u201cStart Strong at USF,\u201d which would provide new student organizations with an online \u201cpacket\u201d outlining funding applications, room reservations, tabling procedures and eligibility requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really want to work to streamline those processes, and we want to look at it from an outside student perspective as a student starting a student organization,\u201d Rabinowitz said. \u201cIf student orgs succeed, students succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related: OPINION: USF room policies shouldn\u2019t sideline student organizations<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rabinowitz said his experience overseeing more than 35 senators while serving as vice chair of the A&S fee recommendation committee has prepared him for the SG presidency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something that\u2019s crucial for whoever is going to be the student body president to know those things,\u201d Rabinowitz said. \u201cSo I feel like I\u2019m really prepared for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students pay A&S fees as part of their tuition \u2014 for Tampa students, these fees are collected through a $7 flat fee and an additional $12.08 per credit hour, according to SG<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This fee supports SG boards, programs, 12 success departments and over 250 student organizations to improve services related to student activities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A central focus of their campaign is the A&S budget allocation, as Rabinowitz said he began questioning why student organization budgets were being cut.<\/p>\n

Student organizations saw a roughly 50% budget decrease<\/a> for the 2025-26 fiscal year due to a $2.6 million shortfall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Departments also experienced reductions during that period, which resulted in hour changes to USF\u2019s MSC<\/a> and Tampa Library<\/a> last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I found is, right now, a lot of the money in the activity and service fee is going to things that are not activity and service,\u201d Rabinowitz said. Things that are payroll, things that don\u2019t benefit the majority of students in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rabinowitz said A&S funds used to pay senators and other SG roles could be redirected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are we spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of student fees that should be going to students, on senators\u2019 paychecks?\u201d Rabinowitz said. \u201cThose should be cut, and it should go back to the students for things that will benefit them.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are 40 seats<\/a> in the senate, and each senator receives $15.00 per hour for seven hours per week, according to SG<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Related: USF SG senate president resigns amid \u2018toxic\u2019 climate, seeks freer advocacy<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rabinowitz said the ticket is prepared to build relationships with the student body and lead with transparency and accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to give broken promises,\u201d Rabinowitz said. \u201cI want to build trust with the student body.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article is part of a \u201cMeet the Candidates\u201d series for all tickets running in the presidential election. The Oracle will publish two articles a day as part of this series. Check the website for more tickets tomorrow.<\/p>\n

The other tickets running in the race are: <\/p>\n

David Douglas Zahn (student body president) and Titan Sanchez (student body vice president)
\nCaio Esmeraldi (student body president) and Maria Julia Mussa Martins (student body vice president)
\nTyler Williams (student body president) and Haran Mahesh (student body vice president)
\nMuhammad Kamil (student body president) and Linda Kahok (student body vice president)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Presidential candidate Hunter Rabinowitz to the left and his running mate, Mia Riley, to the right. ORACLE PHOTO\/AUDREY…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-168480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}