The Associated Students of California Baptist University made changes to their student representation this semester. Freshman representatives were elected, remaining positions were filled by appointment and a new constitution was pushed for approval.
At first, all positions were to be won by students through an election process, but nine positions were not filled in time. These positions were then filled by appointment.
Taylor Brewton, president of ASCBU, and the rest of the executive council were in charge of figuring out what to do with the vacant positions that were not filled after the spring 2010 elections.
“The election process is always best, just because it’s open to the student population as to who they want to be in ASCBU. In this case we didn’t have people run for the majority of the positions,” Brewton said.
In the current student constitution, ASCBU is given the power to appoint the positions that are not filled during the election process in the spring.
“We chose to open it up to the student population and have them do some type of application so that we know that they are interested and then interview them in groups with a few of us from executive council,” Brewton said.
The executive council then took the information that they had gained from the group interviews and put the applicants into the positions that they needed to be filled.
The new student constitution plans to change the amount of senators that are selected to represent the students. With too many students being elected to interpret the students, the student government is challenged with the over-representation of the student body.
“The changes [to the constitution] we’re hoping, will help us better represent the student population. That’s the biggest change that we hope to pass in the constitution,” Brewton said.
Eight new freshman students were elected or appointed to represent their living areas and classmates. The freshman class president is Harvey Hettinga and the vice president is Kate McPhillips. Jonathan Frey was elected Secretary and Treasurer.
Tori Offerman was selected to represent the Cottages. Isaac Monroe and Daniel Kari represent Smith Hall as President and Vice President. Christine Lopez was voted in as the Simmons Hall President and Sam Scissons was elected Vice President.
Of the eight students that were appointed to positions in ASCBU, Dustin Schanaker is one of three seniors to join student government. As the senior secretary and treasurer, Schanaker is in charge of taking notes and making requisitions for funds to use for events.
“We have different events that we propose and we are given a set budget per semester. If we have an event that we estimate to be a couple thousand [dollars], we take that from fees,” Schanaker said.
The money used to pay for the events comes from the student fees that are paid each semester by CBU students. ASCBU plans and organizes these events.
