The days won’t get any shorter for ASUO President-elect Adam Petkun and his running mate, Mena Ravassipour, now that they’ve nabbed the ASUO’s top spot.
The new Executive elects are beginning the process of transitioning into their new roles, a process that includes, among other things, rearranging staff positions and hiring employees.
And the trick is they only have about a month to do it. Move-in day is May 25.
Current ASUO President Maddy Melton explained that the transitional process is important and time-consuming.
“I think the transition is pretty important when it comes to whether or not the new Exec will hit the ground running, or whether they’ll have to take a few weeks to feel their way around,” Melton said. “Eddy (Morales) and I are really excited to spend a lot of quality time with Adam and Mena over the next four weeks.”
Melton said last year she and current ASUO Vice President Morales determined the focus of their Executive staff by creating those positions and performing at least 55 interviews to fill them, all within three weeks of winning the general election.
Petkun said his goal is to have all of his staff hired by move-in day.
“To do that we need to lay out sort of a vision for what we want our office to feel like,” Petkun said. “Maddy was telling me that it’s really important to not only just look for the best people for the job, but make sure the staff works well together. So, that’s the major task.”
Petkun said he and Ravassipour haven’t finalized their vision for the staff, but he said it would look pretty similar to past staffs.
“We’ll definitely have two staff members in the legislative positions since it’ll be a legislative year on the state side of things,” Petkun said. “Also, we’re thinking very seriously about instituting a chief of staff position, which hasn’t been done here in a while.”
Petkun said the chief of staff would ensure the smooth operation of the office, make decisions and ensure people are responsible for their actions — in essence, crack the whip.
Petkun and Ravassipour also will need to make appointments to the ASUO Programs Finance Committee, Athletic Department Finance Committee, EMU Board of Directors and the ASUO Constitution Court, Petkun said.
Ravassipour said this summer she will begin “learning the ins and outs of what I’m going to be doing.”
“Eddy is going to help me kind of sit down and tell me what he needed to do and learn before he took office,” Ravassipour said.
Since the pair’s victory at the polls Monday, Ravassipour has been concentrating on school, she said. They have yet to sit down and finalize their big tasks for the summer, but she is confident they will get started on the major areas of their platform.
Petkun said he and Ravassipour have met with Melton to begin formulating a summer plan.
“We talked a little bit about the voter (registration) that they’re doing right now to see if we can get me plugged in as soon as possible,” Petkun said. “Because that’s something that Mena and I are really excited about and it’s one of the major planks in our platform.”
This summer, Petkun and Ravassipour will plan the ASUO fall Street Faire and start tackling what Petkun calls the “sketchy scheduling penalty,” or the absence of a full refund when students drop courses late.
“At the same time, we would like students on campus when we tackle some of these things,” Petkun said. “It’ll still mostly be planning and strategizing.”