By Joshua Chan
A new ASU executive board has been elected, and in order to continue improving faculty and club relations, the current board will train the new board members.
From this month until July 1, the new board will learn as much as possible within this small time frame. They will learn how to run and operate meetings as well as be taught their individual responsibilities. Not every new board member will have to learn from scratch. Jennifer Estrada, the new ASU president is the current ASU chief delegate and has been preparing to tackle the duties and responsibilities of a president since the election began.
James Garcia, the current ASU president, has taken the time to talk to her about what she will be doing once she takes over his position. Because they have been working together for the past year now, Estrada already knows what is going on in the ASU office and what the board has planned ahead for the college.
Garcia expressed his faith in Jennifer Estrada to properly continue and improve upon the work they have been doing this past year. “Jennifer is extremely prepared. She’s worked with me for the entire year… It helps that she has this previous experience,” Garcia said.
The other winners of the ASU election include Jessica Rodriguez as vice president, Jackie Gonzales as chief justice, Ardai Martinez as treasurer, Iris Gayatan as secretary and Noemi Nestor as historian. The current ASU board made their intentions clear last fall when they were elected by stating that they wanted to strive to improve relations between the college faculty and clubs. It is now their intention to let the next board continue planning and organizing school activities while keeping the lines of communication between faculty and clubs open and clear.
Activities such as Political Awareness Day, held Thursday, was a joint activity organized by both ASU and faculty members. ASU is also actively working with the faculty to improve the library by increasing the number of titles they carry. This project has been difficult to accomplish due to the budget cuts in the library’s funding. Solving this problem will be up to the next ASU board.
To prepare them for the work load, the current board has started coaching the new board on how to properly do their job. By using the knowledge they have acquired from working this past year, Garcia and his colleagues hope to teach the new board everything they need to know. They will start with power point presentations on “Robert’s Rules,” the parliamentary rules used to run a meeting. These presentations will cover all aspects of running a well-planned and organized meeting between two or more groups of people from different departments and organizations.
From there, each member of the new board will meet with their respective counterpart to begin one-on-one coaching. Garcia said that he hopes all the advice, insights and pointers they give to the new board will prepare them for next year. “It’s all just theory, until they put it to use,” Garcia said.
