The ASUO senate unanimously confirmed Vanessa Taylor as the new student government vice president and Yadira Ramirez as the ASUO elections chair on Dec. 1. The senate convened for a special meeting on Dec. 1 for the VP appointment, as well as approving a new elections chair.
This follows former vice-president Odalis Aguilar-Aguilar’s departure in November.
Taylor was chosen by ASUO president Isaiah Boyd through an application process and reviewed by a committee consisting of directors on the executive branch. She previously served as the ASUO executive internal director.
With some established contacts within university administration, Taylor said she plans to contact administration regularly along with contacts she has made in the past. “If I get appointed, just being like, ‘let’s meet, let’s discuss my goals, your goals and how we plan to communicate in the future,’” she said. By creating a steady line of communication she said she hopes to build relationships with trust and respect.
Taylor said that her time in ASUO has taught her to delegate her work. “I have an entire team working alongside me,” she said, “and everyone is working towards the same goal.” She said she wants to exercise communication with her team about workloads and stress.
She said she is excited to implement surveys dealing with campus safety and student needs. “We’re supposed to represent the entire student body,” she said. Releasing those surveys will help add structure and make programs that help students more sustainable, she said.
Taylor said the surveys were pushed back to week one of winter term to get opinions from student organizations on campus. “Once we get that information and feedback back we are going to alter our surveys to fit a wider stroke of students,” she said. After the organizations respond, ASUO will ask them to share the surveys with their communities through their social media platforms.
Taylor said she would like to see other members in the executive branch fill positions like the internal director. “That way they can start building more of their leadership skills and then we can kind of share our knowledge and our strategies that we’ve made so it’ll be a smooth transition,” she said.
Ramirez was the executive branch’s candidate for the ASUO elections chair. ASUO director of recruitment and HR Michael Yoo said the elections chair primarily deals with the campaigns and elections that occur around late winter term and spring term.
Ramirez said it’s important to make sure that the elections board is diverse. “I would be really excited to get that board situated and well informed first and kind of have preliminary conversations about what justice is, what fairness is and what equity is so that we are all in a place where we can hear these issues or problems that are coming from the board,” she said.
