The Associated Students of Pomona College and Scripps Associated Students announced the election of new executive board members this past week. Maria Vides PO ’18 became president in her first position on ASPC. At Scripps, Kelly Peng SC '18 won the Scripps student presidency in a record-turnout election.
In an interview with TSL, Vides emphasized the importance of building a student government that is representative of the body it governs in terms of its diverse identities.
“I’m excited to meet the new class, and I think that for people to see a senate that is so representative of marginalized groups on campus, and even in the United States at large, is going to be really meaningful. I’m excited for them to experience a Pomona that’s completely different from the one I encountered when I first got here,” Vides said.
Vides’s main goals for her presidency include centralizing resources on campus and making them more accessible to all students. She explained how her lived experiences at Pomona have informed her of ways to make resources more available.
“A lot of the plans that we have is to bridge that gap between the resources that exist, and how people are actually accessing them … So I’m hoping that with my lived experiences here and all the work I’ve been doing over the past couple years with the whole community, and other community members that are very prominent, that we’ll find ways to make all those financial, legal, and day-to-day type of resources more accessible,” said Vides.
Carlos Hernández PO ’18 was elected as Vides’s executive vice president. He spoke to how his previous experience as Sophomore Year Representative and North Campus Representative during his sophomore and junior year, respectively, will inform his role as executive vice president.
“I think, particularly this year, Senate has been a very good advocate for a lot of good causes. This year specifically, I had a role that looked into policy, and we revised the Student Handbook, the Student Code, and we tried to make the Judicial Board just work more efficiently,” Hernández said. “We added some revisions to have a judicial board that better serves students and is more transparent.”
Nearly 600 Scripps College students voted in the SAS election, the highest voter turnout in several years. Newly-elected SAS President Kelly Peng also hopes to increase transparency between SAS, the administration, and Scripps students.
“My main goals are to really make sure SAS is transparent and doing what we've all set out to do by running our campaigns. I'd also like to center student perspective in conversations with admin and shift the focus of SAS to recognize/collaborate with student work that's already happening on campus. That being said, I also think it's extremely important to hold Scripps accountable.” Peng wrote in an email to TSL.
Peng served as SAS Executive Vice President this past year, a role which will now be filled by Irene Yi SC ’19. Yi agreed with Peng’s views towards increased SAS transparency.
“I’m hoping to implement having SAS tabling every single week, so that students will be able to know what’s going on not just with SAS, but around the campus,” Yi said. “[We’re also hoping] for the students to have a direct way to express their grievances and how they think the campus should be improving, and how SAS can support them in that way.”