The Direct Contact Series of Booklets, sharing a variety of S... by Joshua Shapiro

“Josh Shapiro virtually has set a new standard for student leadership,” Paul Burgett, the vice president and University dean of students at the time, told the Campus Times student newspaper in 1992. Shapiro championed better safety measures on campus, and during his year as president, the University added more outdoor lights and blue light security phones and improved its shuttle service at night for students. “I learned the ins-and-outs of public service, and what it means to advocate for other people.” “I knocked on doors, rallied with students, and together we made our campus better and improved communications between students and administrators,” he recalls.

Shapiro became a student senator, then beat five juniors in the spring of 1992 to become the only first-year student in school history to serve as Students’ Association (SA) president. “They said, ‘You don’t have anything else going on, so why not?’ I decided to run-and I won.” He is the only Rochester student elected SA president in his first year. That same day, he was also cut from the men’s basketball team.īack in his dorm room, Shapiro was pondering what the future held when someone knocked on his dorm room door and asked if he wanted to run for student government. “I started as a pre-med student, but a few months into freshman year, I nearly flunked out of organic chemistry,” he shared. When he arrived on the River Campus in 1991, Shapiro planned to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor.

(University of Rochester photo / Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation) A tough day turned into a fortuitous one during Shapiro’s first year at Rochester.

The Direct Contact Series of Booklets, sharing a variety of S... by Joshua Shapiro