After five months, Associated Student President Irving Morales has filled all the vacancies on his executive board with the exception of Chief Justice of the Supreme Council.
Due to lack of interest in some board positions and candidates not meeting the minimum requirements, Morales has had a tough time finding students to fill the vacancies.
Positions for the board were opened during the summer so that Morales could get a bigger pool of students to apply.
“There are a lot of requirements we have to fulfill,” said Morales.
Some of the requirements include enrolling in nine units for the semester and being available Wednesdays. Morales was also looking for candidates who were passionate in their desire to help other students on campus.
“Honestly some interviews, [candidates] were like this will look good on my resume which is great,” said Morales. “But from some of them I never heard how this was going to benefit our students which is something I very strongly believe in.”
During the two rounds of applications, one in summer and an extended application date during the fall, candidates were expected to turn in their paperwork on time and if they had filled out everything properly then they were interviewed for the position they were applying for.
According to Morales, he has found the task of appointing students to board positions difficult because the pool of students applying wasn’t very large and some of the students that did apply did not meet all of the qualifications.
“All my VPs have been pushing people to apply,” said Morales. “That’s why I love about my VPs, they are very strong.”
VP for public relations was one such position that was filled by Joshua Mentrup thanks to the recruitment efforts of Morales and Emily Melder, VP of internal affairs.
Mentrup, much like most of the board, is new to AS. At first he was unsure whether or not being VP for public relations would be a good idea due to his workload. But after hearing his friend Melder talk about AS, he decided to apply.
“She talked about it every day about how awesome it was going to be,” said Mentrup. “I got kind of ignited. I had this feeling like I also wanted to be a part of this.”
Mentrup found campaigning to be the most difficult part of applying for the position.
“There are so many things you can do wrong,” said Mentrup. “For example, there’s this one rule where if your just petitioning to be a candidate you cannot say you are a candidate otherwise, right away, you are excluded from the process.”
According to Melder, the requirements are in place to make sure that the best person fill the position rather than just any student.
“Having the best person for the position is more important than filling the position,” said Melder. “Because it is giving a service to the students.”
Melder agrees with Irving that the candidates have to have passion and the time to dedicate themselves to the position they are applying for.
“I’m glad that we waited and that we have the right people and not just the first ones that we got,” said Melder.
Morales is still looking for a student to fill the position for Chief Justice of the Supreme Council.
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