Graduate
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Donna Randolph
The Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department Graduate Student
What do you hope to give and take away from an A.S. appointment?
I believe graduate students have a voice, a lot of the times student government is based on the undergraduate voice. Graduate students are a pinnacle of the campus and I believe I would be able to showcase graduate students. I would like to have seminars that are geared to the graduate students to address their needs and interests. I believe the Associated Student seat gives us that voice.
What interests you about politics?
I like the dynamics, social dynamics, and interpersonal dynamics. I believe in democracy. The name and prestige is not important to me, I believe in giving everyone a voice.
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
The voice for the graduate student.
What is the most important thing the student body should know about you?
That I will listen and that I am fair and that I will fight for the graduate student’s rights.
What is the single biggest issue facing the student body, and what do you propose to do about it?
Fees and budget. I’ll try to get answers and get the most of our money out of what we do pay, for graduate students in particular. There is a lack of research and fellowship information, we need more resources for graduate students and graduate student alumni.
Upper Division
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Erik Mata
Junior
Chicano/a Studies & Political Science
What do you hope to give and take away from an A.S. appointment?
I will dedicate myself to students and I know how policies work and how to create them. I have experience in putting together events by being involved in A.S. I also have the ability to follow through with all commitments.
What interests you about politics?
I like that politics have the ability to compromise. We all have different views but share a common goal. As a candidate, I have the student’s best interest in mind and I will work to compromise and mediate in their best interest.
As senator, what are your highest priorities for your college?
My highest priority is making sure students are graduating. I want to make sure they know their path to graduation as far as applying for graduation and also ensuring students take their upper division writing exam so that they can graduate on time.
What is the single biggest issue facing the student body, and what do you propose to do about it?
I think a queer resource center is vital to the CSUN community. Many students need additional help and counseling and a queer resource center would be able to provide that for them. A center will also provide information, answer questions, and give students a place to go that can offer them assistance.
Lower Division
Scott Tamaki
Freshman
Communication Studies
As senator, what are your highest priorities for your college?
I’d say to create awareness about not only what’s going on at CSUN but what’s going on like in Sacramento with the budget cuts and what around CSUN is being taken care of and how that effects us in the long run.
What kind of student government history do you have?
I’m involved in the University Student Affairs community. So we take care of matters that can be implemented and can be changed. We deal with bettering different qualities around the school. I’m a general member.
What is the single biggest issue facing the student body, and what do you propose to do about it?
It’s obviously the budget cuts. What I basically plan to do about it is to teach others how to be frugal with what they have. Not always getting a meal on campus…getting an apartment instead of living at dorms. Making things a lot cheaper for yourself.
Rachelle Bowen
Sophomore
Undecided
What do you hope to give and take away from an A.S. appointment?
I would like to see students more involved on campus. Also, as an eco-freak, I want to come up with more policies to make our campus greener. As an A.S. lower division senator, I want to be the voice of students and listen to what they have to say and push for the things that they want.
What personal experience will help you become successful as a candidate?
I am a member of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority, which has taught me the importance of hard work, organization, teamwork, and the value of communication. Working in the A.S. Recycling Center has also helped me learn more about how A.S. works.
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
I want to let lower division students know what resources are available. I want them to feel like they can go to A.S. and not be intimidated. Overall, I want to achieve a sense of unity among the student body.
Strongman Osom
Freshman
Broadcasting Journalism
What interests you about politics?
I did not really do it for the political aspect. I did it for the students. I’d like to be the link between the students and the administration.
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
I think that the one thing that can always be developed on any college campus is the involvement in programs. We have a great number of freshmen who are enthusiastic and who want to do something to represent the Matadors as a school, as a unit. The programs that we have in place already, though they are good, they don’t know where to go to join up or to get a taste of that or to create their own.
What is the single biggest issue facing the student body, and what do you propose to do about it?
I’d be an idiot to not talk about budget cuts. Although the rally that we had this year was interesting and informative, I think that it could have been planned better. If you get the attention it may not change like (snap) that. But the more attention you can drag to your cause the better.
Arts, Media, & Communication
Jesse Ickler
Junior
Screenwriting
What do you hope to give and take away from an A.S. appointment?
I want to enable the students to be given a way to unite between the departments. The same reason I started the Media and Entertainment Guild, I’m the president of one of the fastest growing clubs on campus. We’re doing the exact same thing, drawing the departments together. And usually the art departments are the first to be neglected. That’s where I can really help out.
What is the single biggest issue facing the student body, and what do you propose to do about it?
A lot of people say that the biggest issue right now is the budget and I think that is a huge issue, however I think the big issue is the disconnect between the students. If the students were united they wouldn’t be able to be kicked around and pushed around on the budget.
What interests you about politics?
I’m not a politician. I’m an artist. Politics doesn’t interest me so much. I got into this because they need a non politician to actually make things happen.
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William Lee Overvold
Senior
Communication Studies
What personal experience will help you become successful as a candidate?
This year I’ve been on the USU board of directors, I was oppinted for a one year term for student leadership. Doing that has opened my eyes has opened my understanding of how things happen on the USU side. I also have been involved with different clubs here on campus, such as the Communication Association, the Muslim Student Association. I’ve been involved in Students for Justice in Palestine, the Iranian Student Association. In high school I was a part of Future Business Leaders of America, the Science Club, the Environmental Sustainability club, so different things, different experiences, different groups of people. I want to be able to work with them and different groups that I’ve encountered myself, it’s always important to be able to see different points of view, maybe not agree 100 percent of the time, but make the decision that is going to be for the betterment of as many people as possible.
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
I want to achieve a greater understanding of how the student government body works. I understand to an extent already but my opinion in life is that there is always more to learn. I am not a content person, I always want to de better and learn more. And to me it’s always important to always see what you’re good at and not good at and to see what you’re okay at and maximize what you’re great at and work at what you’re bad at and what you’re okay at, keep going strong striving for better perfection. Just making sure that, of you know, gaining experience of a greater understanding of what is needed out there, what do we need here at CSUN, what is essential to students and what do we want and what do we need and to be able to differentiate between the two and then obviously make decisions that are going to effect change.
As senator, what are your highest priorities for your college?
There’s a lot of things going on here at Arts, Media and Communications. Just making sure that people know in their colleges different careers that are out there when they graduate. Word of mouth, alumni relations is important to me but I think right now more so the main thing for them is knowing where their money is going. Knowing that this fee is an AS student fee, this fee is an USU fee, where things are going in their lives, how basically their money is being spent and how things are being accounted for and basically, knowledge and accountability of where the funding is going, for as much clarity as possible and making sure there is no confusion.
What is the single biggest issue facing the student body, and what do you propose to do about it?
I would definitely say the rising cost of tuition and that people are not graduation when they want to graduate and the budget is definitely, the financial concerns, I mean we hear it all the time. We need to make sure that we work with legislatures, and the chancellors office and the presidents office, these intelligent people who we need to have these discussions with, these people who can influence change and who can work with things to make things happen and we need to just, as students, attend town hall meetings. Make sure there is higher accountability for the state representitives.
Omar Romero
Senior
Communication Studies
What interests you about politics?
Creating positive change for my fellow peers and the people around me and creating change within the system and in the school.
What personal experience will help you become successful as a candidate?
I’m currently in M.E.Ch.A and am the vice president and co-chair of that club. That has given me a start into A.S.B. and that is the reason why I want to work for A.S. I’ve seen the kind of change we created there (M.E.Ch.A) and I can only imagine what we can do on campus.
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
I want to create change and a conscious student body and transparency as far as where their money is going. I want students to be involved and know where the money is going to.
What is the most important thing the student body should know about you?
I am driven, dedicated and passionate about my school and my fellow peers and I’m a big, big, big advocate of CSUN.
Humanities
Stephanie Lobos
Sophomore
Asian American studies
What personal experience will help you become successful as a candidate?
What I see is that great things can be done if we work together, misunderstandings can be easily solved if we just had communication.
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
I want to work as a community. It’s really important for us to come together, for the students to really be involved. We need to let people know how the A.S. really works and work with what we have.
What is the most important thing the student body should know about you?
I’m very open, I like to hear both sides of the story, the importance of that is making the best solution. The only way we can progress forward is if we work together.
As senator, what are your highest priorities for your college?
My department also has ethnic studies and that is being challenged, not directly at CSUN but we see it at CSULA and we hear about Arizona.
Antonio Mireles
Sophomore
English
What do you hope to give and take away from an A.S. appointment?
I want to create more classes for students, right now many of them can’t take the classes they need because of budget cuts. You’re fighting for your voice, what you think should be done about things.
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
I am going to be running for the students and running on their voice.
What is the most important thing the student body should know about you?
I’m a hard worker, diligent, right now I’m taking 19 units.
As senator, what are your highest priorities for your college?
To make sure the people in humanities are getting what they need to graduate, if they need more funding or attention.
Sooni Livingston
Junior
English
What do you hope to give and take away from an A.S. appointment?
I’m a commuter so I know what it’s like. I just want to help people like me who have to commute from L.A., Palmdale, Valencia feel more part of the CSUN community. I know how it is, you’re not a part of the community, and you’re not on campus. I just want to make it as easiest as possible for them to feel like that they don’t have to worry about not being a part of or missing a beat.
What interests you about politics?
Just looking at previous (CSUN) senators and the CSUN budget, you know we’re in a budget crisis right now and many of my friends have left CSUN because they can’t afford to come here anymore. I can bring my ideas to the table and help them to make things better.
Science and Math
Malek Al-Marayati
Freshman
Marine Biology
What personal experience will help you become successful as a candidate?
Currently I am a leader in the Muslim Student Association, I lead the weekly meetings. We’ve been active a lot on campus and we’ve been growing a lot as well. Also I’ve been in several leadership roles throughout high school.
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
My ultimate goal is to have at least some sort of progress in getting students to be more aware of the expenses and the finances of the school.
As senator, what are your highest priorities for your college?
Number one is more representation, number two getting more money out there because I know the projects are limited in terms of research.
What is the single biggest issue facing the student body, and what do you propose to do about it?
The transparency of the budget and the finances. The way I want to do this is get a system that makes our finances transparent, like online or something, every student should have access to it and it should be really easy to access it and it should be legible. So we all know where our tuition is going and we all have a say in where our tuition is going.
Brande Hookfin
Junior
Kinesiology
What personal experience will help you become successful as a candidate?
I would bring a lot of diversity to the senate. The senate that we have now isn’t very diverse and that’s one of the most important things that we need there now, different types of views coming from all over our campus cause we have such a huge diverse campus.
As senator, what are your highest priorities for your college?
To get more internship’s, I am in the health and human development field and with that you have to have some kind of experience going in to the field and I feel that there are not enough opportunities for us to get that experience. I feel that there is a bridge that we should build between the health and human development department and the health center so we can get more students more work experience.
What is the single biggest issue facing the student body, and what do you propose to do about it?
The allocation of our funds, we need to be able to feel that we can go to our student body government and get the funds we need to put on the cultural events and different events we want to put on as students. That’s what the money is there for and I feel that it is not really being used and spread out amongst the students evenly.
Mellad Khoshnood
Junior
Biology
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
I hope to open student’s eyes about how things on campus work and why some things can’t be solved or guide them toward needed resources to the best of my abilities.
What is the most important thing the student body should know about you?
I want the student body to know that I am a dedicated person and will put in 110 percent to all tasks. I will be dedicated to my position will perform to my utmost efficiency and excellence.
What is the single biggest issue facing the student body, and what do you propose to do about it?
The lack of class availability is a big issue on campus. I want to make students aware that if they can’t get into a class that they need they can bring the matter to the A.S. president and if enough students need the same class another section might be able to be opened.
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
I hope to open students’ eyes about how things on campus work and why some things can’t be solved and guide them toward needed resources to the best of my abilities.
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Ben Barron
Senior
Political Science
What do you hope to achieve as senator?
One of things I want to do is keep our budget under control. I know it’s an impossible task. The second thing is I really want people to get involved. I know that’s much easier said then done being a commuter school. I know some people look at it like this is my school, this is not my home. I would like to change that because I feel like CSUN is my home.
As senator, what are your highest priorities for your college?
Graduation, I want people graduating, getting their degrees.
What kind of student government history do you have?
Extremely limited. I have been a part of various organizations; I have been in panels like for Study Abroad and things like that. But as far as actual government, this is my first time running. So I haven’t actually been behind the scenes. I want to get my hands dirty, I want to roll up my sleeves, throw my tie back and get going. As soon as the students of CSUN decide that I’m who they want I will be more then happy to just roll up my sleeves and do their work, I want work on behalf of everybody.
