Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Brandon Lem Felix Barba, ASI director for Arts and Letters, talks to communication studies major Brenda Sotelo about his political slate during the Coffee and Conversation event on Thursday in the Union. [Click to enlarge]

Although Associated Students Inc. had trouble filling its vacant positions after members were found ineligible earlier this semester, the student-body government didn't seem to struggle with getting candidates to run in its elections this year.

Twenty-four candidates are campaigning for the ASI elections taking place at the end of April. Of the candidates, 21 of them - five more candidates than last year's total - are running for 14 positions on the ASI Board of Directors.

The positions include: president, executive vice president, vice president of Finance, vice president of University Affairs, vice president of Academic Affairs and nine directors for each college.

Four candidates are running uncontested, which means there is only one candidate running for a position.

ASI President Christina Romero said any person running uncontested will be elected into office if he or she receives at least one vote, unless he or she is disqualified.

Disqualification can occur when a candidate does not file paperwork on time or if a valid election complaint is brought before the election committee, Romero said.

Miguel Cervantes, executive vice president, is running uncontested for the position of president.

Cervantes ran uncontested for executive vice president last year and didn't expect to have no competition this year because of past competition for the position. Four candidates ran for president in last year's election.

"I was hoping to see competition. That way students would be more encouraged to look into the different candidates and make a better decision of who they want to be their representative," Cervantes said.

Incumbent Vice President of Finance Tim Snyder is also running uncontested, along with director of Education candidate Florenda McGee and graduate director candidate Shawn Smith.

No candidates are running for director of Arts and Letters, director of Engineering and Computer Sciences and director of Undeclared.

The position for director of Engineering and Computer Sciences has been vacant since the beginning of the semester. No candidates ran for the director of Undeclared last year and the position was vacant this semester until Justine Yang was appointed on March 12.

Vote Action and Imagine Revolution are the two slates in this year's election. Three candidates are running individually.

A slate is a team of candidates running for different positions on the ASI board under a common platform.

Nine candidates are running under Vote Action with the platform "celebrate diversity, promote unity and provide student services."

Cervantes said Team Action is a group of students that came together wondering what issues it can advocate for students.

Celebrating diversity is one part of the platform because Sacramento State is a diverse university, Cervantes said. He felt students should take advantage of the diversity and learn from each others' cultures.

"I believe that ignorance and a lack of understanding creates fear, and that fear translates into not wanting to work with someone else or assuming stuff about someone else," Cervantes said.

Promoting unity is important because it can bring faculty, staff, administration and students together at Sac State to fight for higher education, Cervantes said.

ASI currently provides student services, including the Children's Center, Aquatic Center and Safe Rides program.

Cervantes said the team wants to promote the current services and find out if there are other services that would benefit students.

Nine candidates are running under the slate Imagine Revolution that promotes a revolution within ASI.

Robert Linch, director of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies, is running for executive vice president under this slate.

"We want students to imagine a revolution within ASI - an ASI that really strives to represent the students," Linch said. "I think that the current ASI does that and I think that there are steps that can be taken to build on that reputation."

"Because of our diverse ideologies on certain issues and our diverse backgrounds, I think that we truly bring a lot of value to ASI if elected."

Terry Martin, candidate for director of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies, said many candidates on the Vote Action slate are currently in ASI. Martin said the team wants to bring new people and ideas into ASI ultimately making changes.

"We don't want to just be elected and just sit still," Martin said. "We want to make student government much more applicable to the average student because most people at our school don't even know who the ASI board is."

Curtis Grima, vice president of Academic Affairs, said the university looks to ASI as the student voice because board members are elected to "represent the 28,000 members of the student body."

Grima said the university contacts ASI for opinions on what students want regarding different issues, including whether or not parking on campus is reasonable.

"I think ASI is very influential (in representing the student voice), more so specifically at Sac State," Grima said. "At our campus, at Sac State, I think that all the university players, the administrators, the faculty, presidents - they all respect ASI and its goals. We like to work with them in order to provide change and to provide a campus that's surely in our academic interests."

Romero said ASI also has influence on policies made at the statewide and national levels because of its power in numbers.

One example she discussed was in regards to the statewide proposed increases in fees for the master's program. Romero said ASI is a member of the California State Student Association and the association took a strong stance against the fee increases.

"Because of the California State Student Association's position against that because it was happening to quick, those fees were postponed so they could look further into it," Romero said. "So, students are taken seriously, and even more seriously, when the lines of communication are open."

Romero said students can obtain influence by coming together and making statements together.

She called students the "sleeping giant," meaning that if all students were to rally together as one group, they could have a large impact on policy and elections at any level.

Ashley Downton can be reached at adownton@statehornet.com.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools