A.S. Welcomes New Board Members
At the start of the school year, the Associated Students and Inter Club Council board had a serious problem on their hands: a number of important positions were vacant. However, three students have arisen to the occasion to fill these positions.
Jabria Allen, Brooke Harrington, and Cole Ten are A.S.’s new directors of activities, sustainability and instructional support, respectively. Each hopes to use their position to make a positive impact in the lives of the students of SMC.
Harrington has set her sights on combating food waste, stating “personally, my goal this year as Director of Sustainability is to implement campus wide composting. I want to divert as much of the food waste that we produce on campus from going to the landfill as possible. I think it is an incredibly simple task to accomplish,” said Harrington.
Harrington explained that she only gradually became more involved with student government.
“I didn’t always have the sort of direction that I have now. I started getting more involved on campus last year, that started with volunteering at the Corsair market weekly. Then I got more involved in clubs. Just volunteering in general. I’m an environmental studies major, and I have always been passionate about the environment. I thought being the director of sustainability would help push my leadership responsibilities and goals and help facilitate a better understanding of what it means to be a leader,” explained Harrington.
Allen joined A.S. after learning more about A.S. by working in the Cayton Center for two years.
“Two years ago I would never have thought I would be a director. Like I said I had that need to be active but I just didn’t have the support or something. I expected a regular job, I expected the board to just be more or less like protocol, not to invested in personally. It ended up being the exact opposite,” said Allen.
Ten decided to join A.S. in order to assist A.S. with running more smoothly.
“Part of why I came to this decision is because I have a background in managing information technology systems,” said Ten. “I would say that with any bureaucracy, there are certain things that don’t work as well as they could. But, I think it’s our job as an A.S. board to try and improve those things and move forward as an organization. I don’t really know the system that well as it is my first couple of weeks as an A.S. board member with my skills and my background to help improve the board.”
A.S. is honing their activities to focus on homelessness among the student population, something that the new directors are committed to fighting for.
“I think that the A.S. mission this year is really impactful and powerful because we are trying to focus on student homelessness and food insecurity, as well as student involvement. But homelessness is such a widespread prolific problem that even if we can’t solve it this year, whatever solving it means, it is important that we try to address it and take steps to combat it to the best of our ability,” said Harrington.
Ten wants to promote already existing resources provided on campus to in-need students.
“One of the biggest things for me is connecting the student resources we already have with the students on campus. There is lots of things that students don’t know about that could really benefit them. [A.S. can provide] $40 Microsoft Office, free Microsoft Office that we talked about during this board meeting,” said Ten. “There is lots of resources on campus, like the flavor program or that any SMC student can use the showers in the new core performance center. Those are all things that I would like students to know about just in case they need those things.”