Issue date: 4/22/09 Section: News

Associated Students, Inc.'s, candidates have run on the visibility platform for several election seasons, but candidates absent at debates and sparse attendance point to little success. Attendees were also sparse and candidates answered the same types of questions during both events due to the absence of other opponents.

The smaller crowds helped emphasize speeches made by Yeimi Lopez and Manny Garcha about student involvement and answering the question many students ask: what is ASI?

Lopez, who is running for undeclared director, said on Monday she would like to see a lot more students on campus become involved and active in ASI programs. She believes that involvement is critical to fostering campus pride within the student body.

"As a student who came on campus and had a goal to get involved, I feel like that's an issue," Lopez said. She thinks that recruitment for involvement with various campus programs needs to be more aggressive than past efforts.

"Pride is deeper than just handing out T-shirts…it goes beyond that. It needs to be cultivated and brought from within. We need to begin by having the students get involved with different programs," Lopez said.

Garcha, running for director of natural sciences and mathematics, said in his speech on Tuesday that students often forget that student government is more effective when all students participate and it affects their lives in many ways.

"It shouldn't just be about the politics, it should be about getting people involved, getting them to be concerned about the actual aspects of campus life," Garcha said.

Cristina Shary and Xiul Miranda, both junior journalism majors, think involvement has not grown on campus because of a lack of ASI visibility.

"Unless it's like a big problem we really don't hear too much about them…I honestly don't know any of my representatives," Miranda said.

Both women said they are considering voting in the election, but want to avoid making any uninformed decisions. "I don't want to vote to make the students pay, but I don't want to cut programs either, so I'm not really sure - and I only want to vote when I know for sure," Shary said.

Miranda said ASI members seem approachable and friendly, but she isn't sure how, or even if they are impacting anyone. "I don't really know what they're doing to make it more obvious that they're here to really represent us," Miranda said.

The women's suggestion was for ASI to consider having an outdoor open forum at lunch time for students to air their grievances and concerns with the student government outside of the confines of a formal meeting.

"They really do need to make it more obvious because I don't notice…I'm a little nosy so I'm surprised that I don't know everything that's going on," Miranda said.

Both women were aware of the fee hike proposal, however, and felt that the departments requesting the increases should consider alternative avenues for revenue.

They said they even attended an ASI meeting recently about the hikes.

"I think when we went to that ASI meeting, I think people brought up really good points, like they should do fundraising or large advertising instead of putting the fees on the students - I think that's a little unfair," Shary said.

Miranda said that she could see where fee increases might be necessary if there is no way to avoid them, but thinks that those departments calling for increases may not be trying hard enough before giving up.

"If they need their fees then they do, but I think they should...try harder. Research more to find other ways," Miranda said.

Julia Baum can be reached at jbaum@statehornet.com.

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