 "Photo: File Photo/The Olympian")
During your year as ASOC president, what do you see as your overall plan for the students?
“Just to get engaged with the students. I think our first big battle, before we can even figure out what our next big battle is, is to let the students know we’re here.
Once we know our students better and once we know our community better, hopefully midway through the first quarter we’ll be starting to get a better feel for that. Then we can start to kind of figure out what they really need and want from us.”
What is your goal with the televisions that you have spoken about in the past?
“It’s kind of like a three part thing.
First, it’s using student dollars in a way that benefits students. The students pay the technology fee and we have tons of awesome things with the technology fee, but we don’t have anything that kind of engages with the students more, more proactively, so I’d say the first thing would be using student dollars for students which is what the TVs would be.
The second thing would be to bring OC up to date a little bit.
And the third thing would be; it’s important for a team to have a goal, to have things that at the end of the year you can look back on and say we accomplished that.”
How have you been researching different methods of distribution of information to the students?
“A lot of talking to other colleges, a lot of ‘what are you guys doing, how do you manage this, what content do you put up?’ We went to Pierce Puyallup and it was extensive. They do a thing called Poll Anywhere. You make a poll online and people text message their answers like community college American Idol.”
You’ve mentioned problems with the gym, what do you see as the main problem with it and what are your plans with changing those?
“I think that the main problem is that it’s decrepit. It’s broken down. If it was a person it would need a new hip, a new kidney and really thick glasses. It would probably need a fresh set of dentures. I mean, the thing is broken down they had to spend like $200,000 retrofitting it and part of that included getting hot water.
As far as replacing it, it’s not even on the master plan. The most we can do is create student support and awareness and hopefully by the end of this year have a commitment from the administration to put it on the master plan and kind of have an idea of what we want to do.”
In visiting other schools around the state, what have you seen at other schools that you really like that you would like to bring to students at OC?
“They have big student programs. Big. Pierce Puyallup has 3,000 students and 12 people. We have 14,000 students and three campuses and we have nine. You can do a lot with 12 people. They have three administrators working with them. So, we are talking about one and a half more administrators and three more student employees. So where does the money for that come from? How does that affect where other money is going? We already have commitments to a lot of things at OC. We really value childcare and we have a really historically strong athletics program. Pierce Puyallup doesn’t pay childcare (and) doesn’t have athletics.”
Also, in making these visits, what do you see that we are doing better than these other schools?
“I think that people would be surprised at how good of a relationship we have with our administration and our board of trustees. We have an awesome board. Other colleges’ student body presidents don’t have relationships with their boards at all. They go to board of trustees meetings and they are just basically there because they have to be. Just from the last board of trustees meeting (at OC) they want to be involved they want to be a part of the campus they want to see our school grow and be successful, more than just financially, they want to see this be a cultural place, they want to see this be a place where people can turn in their time of need to get a helping hand and a second chance and I think that’s awesome. We have an amazing president. We have an amazing set of VPs. Not all the colleges have that.”
If you could send one message out to all of the students, what would it be?
“Take full advantage of the college opportunity. I know it’s a community college, but there is so many opportunities to go and do fun stuff. On the ninth, I’m going with the multicultural services to see belly dancing, I mean, getting involved doesn’t necessarily mean going and cleaning the freeway, or sitting in this office doing work for 15 hours a week. But you have to kind of dig past just going to classes, grabbing lunch and going home.”
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