The A.S. Council is conducting interviews this week to
select a candidate for the vacant position of associate vice president of
student services. A panel of councilmembers is expected to announce its final
choice from the applicant pool on Nov. 6, and the council will vote on the
matter next week.
Associate Vice President of Finance and Resources Sarah
Chang said the position has remained open so far because no qualified candidate
was available last quarter.
“[Last year’s applicants] weren’t quite up to caliber, so I
reopened the position,” Chang said.
The appointee will be expected to act as a liaison between
the council and its services, which include Student-Run Television, the
student-operated Internet-broadcast radio station KSDT, A.S. Safe Ride and
Volunteer Connection.
“In the past, the position has been kind of unstable,” Chang
said. “This year, we’re hoping to make it more stable and reach more students.”
Kaveh Cyrus was elected to serve as the 2006-07 Commissioner
of Student Services, which at the time covered only A.S. Safe Ride and
Volunteer Connection. After the council’s restructuring last November, Cyrus
took on many of the functions of the former commissioner of communications,
including relations with SRTV and KSDT.
The new constitution also changed the student services role
from an elected commissionership to an appointed associate vice president
position.
During spring quarter, Cyrus studied in Washington, D.C.,
and an interim replacement was never appointed. During that time, the
position’s duties were not fulfilled.
“When compared to Student Services in the past, I really don’t
know what to expect,” Chang said.
On the heels of last quarter’s leadership void, Chang said
she hopes that the new associate vice president will monitor registration and
usage levels of A.S. Safe Ride and maintain statistics that will be helpful
when next year’s council considers renewing the program’s contract.
According to A.S. President Marco Murillo, the latest action
associated with student services was last winter quarter, when the council
decided to expand the A.S. Safe Ride service to Thursdays. He said the
department has been largely inactive since that time.
“We lost a lot of connections,” Murillo said. “We don’t
really know what happened last year with SRTV. This is for [the A.S. Council]
to better help student services. SRTV is starting to rebuild again after being
closed.”
Chang said that she wants the appointee to make the monetary
and managerial resources of an associate vice president available to both the
SRTV and KSDT student media outlets, so they can be assisted with budgetary and
publicity concerns without having to hire an official manager.
SRTV General Manager Ali Hadian agreed that last year’s
relationship with the council left much to be improved.
He said he recalled gaps in communication from last year’s
operations, which was the station’s first year on the air after returning from
a one-year hiatus. According to him, in some cases officers did not receive
their stipends or expense reimbursements from the council.
“We didn’t have very firm connections between the two,”
Hadian said. “The communication was very poor.”
He said that SRTV’s “clean sweep” — a complete change in
student leadership — left the television station with all-new officers and a
new studio this year.
“We’re basically rebuilding SRTV from scratch,” he said.
According to Hadian, the council has been accommodating with
its finances during the transition, a sign of already-improving relations.
So far, Hadian said he has been discussing SRTV’s needs
informally with Chang. As the year progresses, he said that SRTV will benefit
from a dedicated council liaison, as the station looks to increase publicity on
campus.
