This is the first of three profiles of Associated Students Inc. president candidates. Check back to mustangdaily.net on Tuesday and Wednesday for profiles of candidates Jon McElroy and Jacob Alvarez.
Art and design senior Kelly Griggs thinks the Cal Poly Associated Students Inc. president is the least important person on campus. And that’s why she’s running for the position.
“I was talking to Todd Maki, who was ASI president two years ago, and it was kind of a ‘aha!’ moment for me when he said that,” she said. “The job of the ASI president is to not push views of one’s own, but to suck in the views of the students and spit them out in terms of action. And that is the type of position I’d do well in.”
Griggs thinks there are two types of ASI presidential candidates: “those who have an agenda and goals of things they want to get done during their term, and those who act as a direct student liaison — they do what students want them to do.”
Griggs aims to be the latter. She sees the job of ASI president as a middleman between the students and administration and thinks having a strict personal agenda would hamper her ability to perform this task.
“Issues come up throughout the year — last fall it was diversity and last quarter it was College Based Fees,” she said. “The president has to be adaptable, issues will come up that will have to be dealt with. An ASI president with an agenda wouldn’t work out; the agenda is the students.”
A current member of the College of Liberal Arts board of directors and vice president of public relations for her sorority, Gamma Phi Beta, Griggs wants to expand her focus to serve all Cal Poly students.
“I came here as a freshman and started small by working with (Gamma Phi Beta.) Then I expanded to be on the liberal arts board, and now I’m looking to reach out of my bubble and serve the whole school,” she said.
Griggs is running on a five-part platform. Her items of interest include college affordability, sustainability, campus climate and diversity, student access to services and statewide representation of students.
Affordability: “We need to have a give-and-take. Obviously CBFs are our biggest issue right now … if it goes through we need to add transparency to the process and make sure we know how our money is being spent. If it doesn’t go through, money will be tight and we need to make sure we cut frivolous spending.”
Sustainability: “Angela Kramer has done a great job with the TGIF fund so if it gets tabled to next year I really want to look into it and get student input … I don’t want to put $300,000 into a pot that no one knows about or uses.”
She also wants to look into implementing smaller scale green measures such as installing energy-efficient light bulbs and cutting down on campus plastic bag use.
Diversity: Griggs thinks the administration has done an admirable job since the crop house incident in outlining goals to increase awareness about diversity. She also advocates reevaluating the UCSP requirement to ensure it adequately covers campus issues.
Student access to services: Griggs wants to improve the availability of four campus hubs: the epicenter, Kennedy Library, health center and the administration.
“They do a good job already but some things could be reworked to make them more accessible to students,” she said. “The provost has been working on these issues such as putting graduation evaluations online, but some processes that should take two days take months.” She said adding more services online could possibly help speed up these processes.
Statewide representation of students: Griggs traveled with Kramer to the California State Student Associated conference to help with Kramer’s goal of getting Cal Poly back in it.“We need to get our voices heard. Cal Poly hasn’t been part of it for 20 years. Angela wrote a proposal to redo the internal structure of the organization and I’d like to keep on that, though the economy isn’t helping. Currently only 11 or 12 CSU’s are dues-paying members but with this new proposal, 22 schools would be involved,” she said.
If elected president, the first issue Griggs would tackle would involve the budget. “Depending on the budget, I’d work on the cost, availability of classes, and problems with registration, something on the mind of most students.”
But she reiterated that her main goal is to speak not to students, but for them.
“I’ve met with about 25 clubs right now to get their input and the response has been phenomenal,” she said. “I want every student, every club, whether it’s the biggest engineering club or brand-new club with four members, to have say about what’s happening on their campus.”
Griggs has a long background in student leadership. In high school she was captain of several sports teams and in student government, along with her current position in ASI.
“Student government here was very scary at first. It’s not planning prom, it’s dealing with real issues students have.”
But she thinks she’s ready for the challenge.
“My approach is very realistic. I’m not trying to save the world. I think if a system isn’t broke, don’t fix it and Cal Poly isn’t broke. I just want to take what we have and make it better.”
Kelsey Rugani, an agricultural science sophomore and board of agriculture member, worked with Griggs both on the board of directors and traveled with her to the CSSA conference, thinks Griggs could make a good president.
“I absolutely loved working with her; I think she’s very smart and looks at the bigger picture of things,” she said. “She always puts the students first.”
Anyone interested in learning more about Griggs can go to her Web site.