by Rosie Sinapi
Editor in Chief
Despite a lack of candidates, UL V students elected a new Associated Student Federation (ASF) executive board and five Forum members this week.
Senior Christopher Braunstein will return as president.
“Well, I’m glad simply because I’ll know how it feels to serve for a full year,” said Braunstein who entered the President’s position during a special mid-fall election.
“My main thing I want to do is to look at the Constitution and bylaws because they are so outdated,” he said. “I think it is a feasible goal.”
He also plans to change the way ASF money is allocated.
“I think how money is allocated needs to be changed. We need to focus on events that will bring more students,” he said. “Charity balls and things like that are great to sponsor, but they don’t benefit the whole student body. There is no point in sponsoring an event that only one or two students will go to.”
This year’s Board of Trustees representative, junior Pattie Moreno, will return as vice president. She is thrilled to be vice president and believes she can build up the Forum’s relationship with all students.
“Part of what I have to offer is that I am a very social person,” she said. ”I think that if more students know about ASF and go to the meetings, it’ll make a difference in ASF.”
“I look forward to talking with different student groups and then with faculty and.staff. I got a taste of that as Board of Trustees representative,” she said.
Moreno’s main goal is to make Homecoming successful and to overhaul the by-laws of ASF in order to better serve the ULV community.
Replacing Moreno as Board representative will be current ASF accountant, sophomore Scott Mac Kay.
“As a representative to the Board of Trustees, I hope to present the interests of the students to the Board and work to focus La Verne towards the student’s needs and desires,” said Mac Kay.
The election for Forum members took place on Tuesday through today. At press time, no votes had been counted for the Forum positions. Running for seats were returning members sophomores Bonnie Chuen and Richard Quesada and freshman Tracey Landisi. Seats were also sought by sophomores Edward Edge and Jennifer Pashone.
This year’s ASF elections ran into the same problem it has in the past – lack of candidates. Only one person ran for each executive board position.
Instead of taking the winners of each, students were asked to vote “yes” or “no” for each candidate. Winners had to receive a majority of “yes” votes.
Likewise, only a group of five candidates ran for 10 Forum seats. Traditionally, a body of 12 sits as the Forum. During spring elections, 10 seats are voted for-saving two seats for a freshman and transfer student representative to be chosen in fall elections.
“It’s disappointing that we don’t get more students to run for ASF,” said Don Morel, ASF adviser. “Next year we have got to put our heads together and incorporate more students.”
He feels that the need for more activity from student’s needs to be present not only at election time, but all year.
“At La Verne we get into the dilemma of five percent of the students doing 95 percent of the events. We need to do something to bring more students out,” he said.
ASF’s biggest activity this semester was the letter-writing campaign against the House Recision Bill. Morel believes that more activities like that need to take place if ASF wants to be inclusive.
The executive board and Forum members will meet this summer to decide how to fill the vacant seats.
