Incumbent President Adam Haverstock is running for re-election with vice presidential hopeful Alex Shahin and his slate, Students First, to further implore the improvements that, Haverstock says, have been set in motion to better CSUN as a whole.
Haverstock, Shahin and company say that the main support beams for their platform are effective government, fair funding and student issues.
Regarding his re-election run, Haverstock said, “It would be really terrible if I laid the tracks for all the progress we had in the student government and I didn’t see it through?it would be a shame if we had to start over.”
Some of the progress that Haverstock felt his administration made is building more respect between A.S. and CSUN faculty and administrative figures to better advocate for student needs, which Haverstock said is “a culture change” in A.S.
“I had an opportunity to view our peers (in student government) locally and nation wide and a lot of them act sort of like the ‘prom committees’ like in high school?whereas (at CSUN) we have been able to establish A.S. as an advocacy group to be the voice of the students,” said Haverstock.
Shahin also wants to involve students to address issues at the state level as well.
“I would like to build a lobby of students so we can go up to Sacramento and speak for our peers,” said Shahin. “By getting more students registered to vote, we can build a bigger tool to have our goals achieved.”
Haverstock cites three goals he wants to reach if re-elected. The first is to continue being “an effective advocate,” Haverstock said.
“We don’t know what the future holds with oncoming issues. But we want to make sure (A.S.) is there when it happens to effectively take part in collective governing on campus,” he said.
The second goal is to increase support for inter-collegiate athletics, a position that is in contrast to Haverstock’s campaigning platform the prior year, where he said A.S. funding should not be diverted into the athletics program on campus.
When asked why he is taking a different stance on the issue, Haverstock said, “I’ve realized that athletics is integral to the university?campus spirit is high right now because of the (men’s) basketball (and) volleyball team(s).”
One of his plans for this is to use some of the A.S. future reserve, which, Haverstock said, is a future projects fund, to start an endowment to fund athletic scholarships.
The third thing that Haverstock said his slate wants to do is continue to address student issues. Among these, the two major problems Haverstock cites that need to be faced are the lack of parking and tuition costs.
