As San Diego State ushers in the fall semester, the newly appointed officers of the university’s Associated Students look to make wakes in their tenure, implementing new campaigns and programs while revamping the old.
These programs range from increasing student advocacy to fighting food insecurity, and are being implemented with the hope that more awareness will be brought to the student government’s capabilities. The newly elected officers believe better understanding of the A.S. could mean more students utilizing their resources.
“Sitting down with a student in one hour won’t cover all the aspects of ways students could get involved with A.S.,” said Chimezie Ebiriekwe, A.S. president. “The constant communication that we all have with administrators, a lot of students should be able to use as a resource. We can make the process easier. We can get student concerns to the desks of those administrators on campus.”
A.S. is also allocating its resources to combat hunger in the San Diego region, partnering with the Jacobs and Cushman San Diego Food Bank between the weeks of Oct. 17 through Nov. 7 for the Aztecs Rock Hunger campaign, their official website states.
“The biggest goal for me is to break the Aztecs Rock Hunger record by raising 500,000 pounds of food through the campaign,” said Hayden Willis, vice president of financial affairs and student leader of the Aztecs Rock Hunger campaign. “Not only for immediate food insecurity relief but just to build awareness about the problem with food insecurity as a whole both on campus and in San Diego.”
SDSU’s student government is establishing programs to promote more student advocacy, revamping the Your Voice Matters campaign so that members of the University Affairs Board can see what students want improved, according to Christopher Thomas, vice president of university affairs.
“It is basically where students have the opportunity to share their opinion about anything, about SDSU,” Thomas said. “It’s something that was started three years ago but really was never promoted or given to the students in the right way. So it’s really about revamping it and making sure that their opinions are heard by AS.”
Interested students can submit a comment, concern or suggestion on SDSU’s Your Voice Matters official website.
A.S. is working to expand student awareness in several ways, a major one being their revamped website; its implementation allowing students to more easily discover the AS’s resources, according to Willis. The student government is also promoting themselves through events such as the Union Block Party as well as information sessions regarding A.S. committees, Willis continued.
The leaders of SDSU’s student government say they are striving to give back as much as they can to an institution that left a large impact on their lives.
“The amount that I’ve grown and the amount that A.S. has helped shape me into a better leader will definitely have an impact on me for the rest of my life,” said Carmel Alon, vice president of external relations. “I’m a better version of myself because of Associated Students.”
These student officers say they’ve been affected greatly by those before them, and are well aware of the impact they may have on this university’s future.
“We pretty much, as students, hold the power for the next generations to come,” Ebiriekwe said.
