The Associated Student Government (ASG) elections recently took place from March 9-11 on Engage to elect representatives for the upcoming 2021-2022 school year.

ASG exists to serve the students of Sonoma State University through awareness, advocacy, and representation. The AS Senate serves as the official voice for all the students of the university. The group also works to empower students of SSU to engage in shared governance, representing the student perspective to members of the campus community through leadership and active citizenship.

The positions involved in SSU’s ASG include the Senator of Community Affairs, Diversity, Student Resources, and Sustainability. Other positions of power include AS Vice-President of Finance, Executive Vice-President, and AS President.

The Senate of the Associated Students serves as both the Board of Directors of the Associated Students auxiliary corporation and the legislative body of the student government. The Corporate Affairs Board gives advice and counsel to the AS senate on corporate and organizational wide issues, including; budget, investments, financial and program operations, and more. The Legislatives Affairs Boards serves as the AS Senate work group to keep track of, report on and encourage student action and participation in local, state and national legislative issues and activities.

The University Affairs & Outreach Board serves the senate to manage and give advice and council to the AS Senate on academic, student and university wide issues including engagement and involvement of students.

The AS Senate has delegated responsibility to the Personnel Committee for administration and development of personnel policies and procedures pertaining to evaluation, reclassification, and employee rights and privileges. The personnel committee will ensure all AS personnel policy and procedure is in compliance to existing state and federal law, regulations of the Trustees of the California State University and Sonoma State University policy and procedure.

Regarding the election results, there was a total of 550 votes casted with a 7.6% turnout of the university. For Senator of Diversity, Nataly Hernandez took the role with 62.18% of the votes for 342 casted. Her opponent, Naomi Islas-Lozano, had 37.82% of the votes with 208 casted. “Education comes first, but we are going to try really hard to accomplish our goals. We have to follow specific rules and regulations. It is more about giving ideas to make these ideas happen in order to achieve equity and diversity,” Hernandez said.

Kyle Brame was elected as Senator of Student Resources taking 97% of the 537 votes casted. Brame will be filling one of five positions that ran solo races for this election, meaning that they weren’t running against anyone else for their position. Chris Franco will be taking the position of Senator of Community Affairs with 97% of the 536 votes casted. Molly Clemons will be filling the role of Senator of Sustainability, taking just over 97% of the 536 votes casted.

The AS Vice President of Finance role will be filled by Justin Arenson, taking 97% of the 537 votes casted. The last of the solo race positions goes to Christina Gomez, who will be filling the Executive Vice president position, taking 97% of the 537 votes casted, respectively.

Last but not least, Noelia Brambila will take the role as AS President over her opponent Anthony Pilotti. Brambila took 89.64% of the votes with 493 casted, while Pilotti had 10.36% of the votes with 57 casted. “I really want to act in the best way for the students. One of the issues that I want to work on is textbook issues. It has been years in the making of book prices increasing, and I want to come up with a way to bring those prices down as well as making sure the book store not only has these books on time, but getting the bookstore to offer different programs versus to be able to get those books on time.”

Students’ voices are vital to the governance of SSU, and being a student representative to a university committee is a great way to ensure the student voice is heard in the decision making process of the campus. Student representatives to university committees are excellent leadership opportunities, and often move on to take on leadership positions in the Associated Students. If Seawolves are interested in serving as a student representative to a university committee, visit https://www.sonoma.edu/about/administration/committees to get more information.