Nearly four hours long, this week’s ASG meeting confirmed the new 2015-16 cabinet members. During the meeting, senators spoke, posed questions and debated the merits of each nominee.
“As a selection committee, we spent a lot of time looking at every applicant and we really do feel like everyone we nominated and got confirmed tonight is the best for their position," McCormick junior and ASG Vice President Christina Kim said. "We’re really excited as board to work with them.”
The following positions were confirmed:
Academics VP: Weinberg junior Riko Ohashi
Ohashi’s main points are to help students’ mental health and hold NU responsible for its academic promises to students.
Accessibility and Inclusion VP: SESP sophomore Matthew Herndon
Herndon hopes to create awareness on campus about privilege and marginality. He also seeks to educate the NU community about the school’s activism and oppressive history.
Analytics VP: McCormick junior Serendi Lau
With concerns of metal health and inclusivity, Lau hopes to use data from an Annual Survey to drive future ASG initiatives.
Community Relations VP: Weinberg sophomore Juwairyah (Joji) Syed
Syed seeks to improve the interactions between Evanston and the NU communities by helping ASG create a “platform” for students to interact with the larger community.
Services VP: McCormick junior Michael Wang
Wang’s goal in this position is to use technology to solve problems. Some future ideas of his include updating the CourseDJ website, creating a website for students to track ASG projects and establishing a universal login for students with NU credentials to access student group websites.
Sustainability VP: Weinberg sophomore Christina Cilento
Cilento wants to provide environmental awareness for students as the main technique for implementing sustainability on campus.
Chief of Staff: School of Communication freshman Simran Chadha
Chadha aims to improve the internal workings of ASG by creating transparency between the committee proceedings and decisions by the executive board.
The position for Student Life VP was not confirmed Wednesday night. After a long debate and tense discussion, the selection committee's nominee, Weinberg sophomore Isaac Rappoport, will not fill the position.
In response to the nomination process, SESP sophomore and Northwestern Community Development Corps ASG senator Bella Sandoval said, “I’m disappointed the way Senate has conducted itself tonight in regards to the VP of Student Life nomination.”
After voting on cabinet members, ASG moved to fill an open position on the Wild Ideas Committee, which allocates funds for new student projects on campus. The nominees were Weinberg sophomore Steve Bennett, Weinberg freshman Yusuf Kudaimi and SESP sophomore Colin Campbell. Kudaimi won the elected position.
The last two points of the meeting dealt with legislation. Weinberg junior and ASG president Noah Star and Kim announced the upcoming vote to change ASG Constitution and Code in regards to the election of the Vice President of Student Activities position (SAVP), a spokesperson for student groups. Previously, the selection committee chose a nominee for this position, but now Star and Kim want the position to be elected by students group leaders to make the SAVP more accountable for these groups.
Lastly, ASG passed a resolution supporting sustainability legislation in the Illinois General Assembly. This means ASG supports SB1485 to amend the Illinois Power Agency Act for clean energy industry and reduction of carbon emissions in Illinois.