The Guardian endorses Paul Lin for the position of vice president internal. Because part of this job requires running A.S. Council meetings and making appointments to various A.S. positions, it may seem odd that the best candidate has no experience whatsoever on the A.S. Council.
That notwithstanding, as a candidate, Lin has already demonstrated a willingness and ability to learn quickly and his previous A.S. job was an impressive success. Lin created the A.S. Web site, charting territory where none had existed, and it is ranked among the top three student government sites in the United States. Lin brings this technological focus as a breath of fresh air into the relatively stale vice president internal office; he has vast plans for the implementation of a variety of A.S. information online.
This may seem relatively minor, but if properly implemented, it could revolutionize the way A.S. interacts with students and organizations on campus. Skeptics of the importance of this plan need only look to StudentLink, an administration-implemented online tool students find invaluable. One of the largest problems the A.S. Council has is lack of student interest and mobilization, and in many ways this comes from a lack of transparency into student government. Lin’s focus on opening government is not restricted to electronic efforts either; he has clear plans for expanding in-the-flesh interactions and openness between students A.S. officers.
There is little reason to believe Lin will not be superbly dedicated and committed to this position; he is a consummate academic who has also been involved with student organizations on campus. His list of achievements reads like a litany of the academic scholarships available at UCSD — no small feat, considering his bioengineering major — and in spite of his lack of A.S. experience, his range of activities, from International House to the Biomedical Society, are an impressive cross-section of UCSD that more than demonstrates leadership experience.
Lin’s lack of experience is made up for in his demonstrated drive and intelligence. For example, while running A.S. meetings under parliamentary procedure are an integral part of the job, the Guardian finds Lin most qualified in this role despite his lack of experience. He demonstrated a clearer knowledge of esoteric parliamentary rules than his opponents, perhaps due to his recent reading of the entire book on the matter.
His closest opponent, Liz Erwin, is a more traditional candidate with qualifications as an assistant to the current officeholder, chair of Muir College Council and participation in student organizations. She no doubt has the experience and understanding of the issues necessary for the position due to her active involvement in student government since her freshman year. She also brings solid, original ideas to her candidacy, proposing a student summit at the beginning of the year to gather opinions and ideas from constituents and reforming the appointments process by placing listings for A.S. positions on MonsterTrak. Regardless of whether Erwin is elected, these ideas are simple and necessary to be implemented.
The last candidate, Kevin Hsu, is also qualified with both student government and student organization experience. However, his platform centers upon expanding the internal office to “”advocate”” for UCSD students in the local community, working with the external office more. Hsu’s main background comes from organizations dealing with access to education for underrepresented minorities, and presumably this would become one the issues of the intenal office. This is an admirable goal, but it is not, and should not, be the realm of the internal office; there are a great many on-campus issues that require attention and lobbying, and external is the place for off-campus issues.
Furthermore, the vice president internal must be impartial among competing student views because he mitigates conflicts between senators in and out of A.S. Council meetings. When an issue such as affirmative action, which is a traditional focus of the external office, does not have a student consensus on campus, it seems questionable that a candidate with a focus from affirmative action lobbying organizations on campus wishes to expand the political lobbying focus of the necessarily impartial internal office.
The two competitive candidates are therefore Lin and Erwin. Both have demonstrated competence and original ideas. While Erwin has a clear lead in experience, her best ideas can be implemented by many, while Lin brings an entire range of new technological ideas that few can implement. Furthermore, while Hsu and Erwin would be willing to relax parliamentary procedure on occasion, Lin’s outsider background is an asset because he plans to fairly and strictly enforce parliamentary procedure. While Erwin is experienced and knowledgeable, ultimately Paul Lin is impartial and revolutionary in focus, has shown past leadership and has demonstrated through academics that he is driven and accomplished.
Additional Candidates below:
