A.S. Council has appointed the new Associate Vice Presidents for next year.
The AVP applications became available on the A.S. website about a month ago, and candidates were chosen after being interviewed by a committee of councilmembers. The stipend for AVPs is $3,500 a year.
Vice President of Student Life Meredith Madnick, who sat on the committee, said she chooses applicants based on which prospective members have tangible goals and the strongest understanding of the position.
“A varying amount of senators sit on these committees,” Madnick said. “There is a diverse amount of opinions and hopefully council will trust those decisions.”
Former Muir College Senator Lynne Swerhone is the new AVP of Student Organizations. Swerhone said that she wants to improve the student-org funding process by offering finance workshops, collaborate with One Stop and revise council policies on funding media and food.
“Food is how they survive and we’re not giving them much,” Swerhone said.
AVP of Academic Affairs and 2010-11 Warren College Senator Maclen Zilber said he will focus on pushing Senate to create a bereavement policy.
“If a student has a family member pass away, the university has no policy to get them the ability to drop with a “W,” Zilber said. “This is not legally or morally right.”
Zilber said he also wants to create a service on the A.S. Council website that allows students to project their grade in a class they have not yet taken using formula created from data available from evaluations.
Students would enter their grade point average, year and major onto the website and it would project a grade based on similar students’ data.
“Currently, UCSD has the least grade inflation of any university graduates at competitive schools,” Zilber said. “We’re at a disadvantage. Students should have more of an idea of what they’re getting into when they sign up for classes.”
Warren College sophomore Leonard Bobbitt will be continuing his position of AVP of College Affairs.
“It’ll give me a chance to expand the goals of the office,” Bobbitt said.
He said he would like to create a year-round competition between the colleges, as well as a quarterly collaborative charity drive between the college councils and A.S. Council.
The new AVP of Student Services, Leigh Mason, completed a project before she was approved.
She signed documents with Madnick which make A.S. Safe Rides available the first week of Fall Quarter. In the past they have not been available until October.
“I came as a winter admit and I didn’t know all of the opportunities to volunteer on campus,” Mason said. “Now I can make students aware of the resources.”