AS prepares for next year

By Mark Hansen

Outgoing Associated Students president, Austin Woody, and vice president, Bobby Philbrook, are stepping aside as the newly elected Rachel Manfre and Umang Desai take over.

Juniors Manfre and Desai said they're excited to get started.

Woody's advice to Manfre is to always remember who she is representing.

"When we speak to administrators, we speak not only about ourselves, ... but on behalf of 5,000 plus students," he said. "That's an incredible responsibility and an incredible honor."

When asked about their biggest priority for the upcoming year, Manfre and Desai quickly responded with the desire to make the transition go quickly and smoothly.

Philbrook said he feels this way as well. "Get as much of the transition work done this year with your new staff, so that in the fall you can really hit the ground running to accomplish your platform goals," he said.

Philbrook added that the ten-week quarters go by very quickly, and with all the red tape that needs to be negotiated, the student leaders need as much time as possible to initiate their changes.

Desai said that one of their goals is to establish the same standards of safety for students living off campus as there are for those living on campus.

He added that work needs to be done to make commuter students and off-campus students feel included.

Manfre said they are committed to promoting different clubs and maintaining the strong Bronco spirit that Woody and Philbrook established.

Both Manfre and Philbrook agreed that the homecoming event in February was AS' biggest achievement this year.

The new administration's biggest project will be to reinforce the "Be Heard" system that was started two years ago.

The system's goal is to increase communication between students and their senators by having students submit their thoughts anonymously on small slips of paper.

So, if a student is unhappy with an aspect of the Bon Appétit dining service, for example, that student can fill out a slip and have their voice heard.

The slips are organized in a Google database, which allows them to be sorted efficiently and not get swept out of view.

Manfre said that it's a good system, but it could be improved. It's too slow to work as well as intended.

Desai and Manfre said their victory could be credited to their strong platform. They won with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Contact Mark Hansen at (408) 554-4546 or mnhansen@scu.edu