A Closer Look at Inabu
It is 9 p.m. on Thursday and the polls are closing. After 14 hours of campaigning, a tired presidential candidate walks across a deserted SMC campus. Luckily for Tiffany Inabu, her hard work on the last day of the AS presidential campaign paid off. The next time she would set foot on campus she would be the officially elected AS President for the 2010-2011 school year. ?
Inabu is a second-year student at SMC hailing from Quartz Hill High School in Lancaster. She spent the majority of her time as a drum major. Now she is teetering between a political science and global studies major at SMC.
After entering college, Inabu became heavily involved with student government and campus organizations. She did not know anyone on campus when she first arrived and was initially encouraged to become involved with student government by a classmate. She is now part of eight school organizations and currently holds the AS budget management chair position.
And she works two jobs.
"Sometimes I don't have time to eat during the day so dinner comes at nine, ten o'clock. And that's okay," said Inabu. "I've gotten used to it. Sometimes I have time to eat, which is great." Once the school week has ended, she spends most of her weekend studying and catching up from the week.
As much as Inabu enjoys being involved with so many facets of campus life, she realizes that being elected AS president may force her to reduce the number of activities she partakes in. In the fall semester, when she takes her seat at the head of AS board meetings, she will still be swamped with work, classes and presidential responsibilities, but she looks forward to it all. ?
"I think I'm going to have to take a step back a little bit from certain things," she said. "I still have to be a full-time student and everything, because academics do come first." ?
Future AS Vice President Chantelle Eastman is confident about Inabu's ability to keep up with her duties."She knows what to do, where to go, who to ask, and how to perform," she said.
Using the resources she has already acquired within the AS office, Inabu plans on continuing with many of the sustainability programs already implemented to embrace a green lifestyle at SMC, including worm composting and collaborating with the Center for Environmental and Urban Studies and their Sustainable Works program.
"I want to keep that integrity of being one of the best schools with a sustainable program," she said.
She plans to continue with the Bikerowave program that encourages students to bike to school and in return receive free bike maintenance. She will also collaborate with elected Director of Sustainability, Justine Rembac, on new ways for the student body to embrace sustainable practices.
Inabu also plans on applying her experience as current budget manager to rectify the issues with this year's budget. "In this economic time when things aren't going too great, of course it's going to put some strain on our budget as well," she said. "As the current director of budget management I know there are things that we have to fix, and with that knowledge I will be able to help the next director."
During the presidential debate, Inabu said that she is supportive of CALPIRG and their efforts to inform students about what social responsibilities they have, but feels that the fee proposed specifically for CALPIRG's use should be open to all campus organizations.
"From what I understand, the college won't be taking a fee just for CALPIRG," she said. "But they're willing to take a student organization fee and if CALPIRG wants to use it and the board approves it, then so be it."
She feels as though dealing with the proposed fee will be a learning experience for the board, considering it is the first time this issue has faced them.
Ultimately many of the decisions will be left up to the College and its Board of Trustees, but Inabu is confident that her experience working with these groups in the past has prepared her for her impending duties.
"It does get tough; I'm not going to lie," she said. "It's tough being in all of these [activities] and I'm at SMC for a long time. But I'm fine with that. I love SMC. It's a great school." ?