The official results of the 2014 Associated Students, Inc. Board of Directors election are in, and Kenneth Collins will serve as the new ASI President.
“We are the voice of students,” said Collins. “If we’re not getting their voices, we’re not doing our job.”
Collins says he not only wants to be the voice for students, but to have better outreach for students and encourage greater communication with SF State President Leslie E. Wong.
“I want to know what the University is planning,” said Collins, “I want to know what the University is doing.”
His plans for next semester also include forming a synergy, or union, between ASI and the Cesar Chavez Student Center Governing Board.
ASI and the Student Center are both comprised of a student majority. Collins’s goal is to join the two student governing boards into one.
“The synergy is taking the two student auxiliaries and bringing them together, so you have one enhanced student auxiliary,” Collins said.
During his campaign, Collins and a few other candidates joined together and formed the Voices United team. A future goal of the Voices United team is to get transit passes for students, which is an idea MUNI is open to, according to Wong.
The unofficial results of the election were announced at the Noise Complaint Dance a few weeks ago, but not confirmed until after an allotted grievance period, which is when either winning or losing candidates are allotted time to file a complaint.
Grievances were filed and had to be properly taken care of before the results could be made official.
“I don’t know the specifics of the grievances. That information really doesn’t get disseminated out to everyone,” said Raul Amaya, the Interim Director at ASI. “But I know there were grievances filed and I believe they off centered around campaigning around the dorms, but I’m not sure. The ASI policy is that you have to follow the rules and regulations of the University while campaigning.”
Collins has been part of ASI for four years, and two of those years were on the Board of ASI as an executive member.
He also worked for Project Connect, an outreach program through ASI, for one year and was an intern with Project Connect the previous year.
“Having a positive leader like Kenny being the President of Associated Students will ensure that our Associated Students run professionally,” said Sonya Soltani, the ASI Vice President of External Affairs. “I don’t know anyone that could implement those changes confidentially and professionally like Kenny Collins would.”
May 5 at 5:30 p.m. in Jack Adams Hall the new 2014 ASI Board of Directors will be sworn in at the annual ASI inauguration.