New Members of AAS E-Board Envision Year Ahead

Lori Alarcon ’24, President

Q:Why did you decide to run for AAS president?

A: I decided to run for AAS president because I am passionate about making positive changes on campus and I believe I have the experience and dedication to do so. Over the past few years, I have been actively involved in advocating for the Latino community in AAS and for the FLI community. I have also taken the initiative to create an undocumented immigrant committee for AAS, recognizing the unique challenges faced by this marginalized group and advocating for their rights and well-being. I am committed to promoting inclusivity, diversity, and equity on campus and I believe that serving as AAS president will give me the opportunity to make a meaningful impact.

Q: What are your future plans/goals now that you’ve been elected as president? How do you plan on achieving them?

A: In the last year, we have seen division in senate, and while I can't fix every problem in senate, I will create a safe environment where we bond together. Accountability is a big theme of my goals in senate, not only just for the senators and the e-board but also accountability for the entire campus. I have always wanted to work on a sexual assault awareness campaign. Laurie Frankl does a great job of highlighting the events that the Title IX office does for Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and while I think the things senate can do are limited in this regard, we can definitely work on improving the culture on campus that fails to hold many people accountable for the relationships created on campus through an Accountable Amherst campaign.

Other than that, and given the financial difficulties that exist in senate, I am really looking forward to getting creative with the other e-board members to work with what we have. It is exciting for me how enthusiastic everyone on e-board is; in my experience, having only seniors on any e-board can be a little tricky, since senior year is hectic and the transition to post-grad plans can be overwhelming, and the freshman e-board members have expressed to me their support and energy to achieving our senate goals. I am realistic about the senate's capacity and overall, there needs to be a change in the way we treat one another on campus.

Q: What are some goals/initiatives you’ve accomplished with the AAS already? Do you plan on expanding on or continuing with this previous work as you enter your presidency?

A: Some of the goals and initiatives that I have accomplished with AAS include creating an undocumented committee, the Dreamers Committee, and advocating for the Latinx house, La Casa, to receive much-needed renovations and amenities. Moving forward, I plan on continuing to expand upon these initiatives and building upon the work that is already done. I also plan on working closely with student organizations to promote collaboration and ensure that all student voices are heard. I hope I can be remembered as someone who always advocated for the undocumented community.  

Q: Anything else you'd like to add?

A: To be completely honest, I don't have everything planned out. I want to give space to the voices from campus, so we can focus on seeing actionable change. I do want to warn you that unfortunately, AAS is not in charge of changing the dining hall menu, which is often a popular demand, but we do have a way to communicate with dining hall services and hope in the future to have an accessible way to provide feedback pretty regularly.  

Shane Dillon ’26, Vice President

Q: Why did you decide to run for this position?

A: It's really important to say that [when] the freshman senators this year got into senate … we didn't understand the culture. It was very new to us. It was a learning experience because generally, the reputation of the senate wasn't amazing … I personally wanted to run because I saw an opportunity to bring what we learned during the impeachment trial about the structure of the senate to bring a new structure and a completely new perspective. It's going to be a learning experience for me because I haven't led a student government organization this big … but overall, I see an opportunity to restructure how the meetings work … I want to leave senate having accomplished something, whether that's one senator feeling more confident about their senate project or the work that we do with the administration.

Q: What are your future plans/goals now that you’ve been elected to your new position? How do you plan on achieving them?

A: Two things — [first,] I have a great working relationship with President Elliott and with Dean Angie. I've been working with them on multiple different projects throughout  the last academic year. I also want to say that I'm really looking forward to working with the other e-board members. Lori and I both share a love of public service, and we have a passion for it — I'm really excited to work under her leadership. Also, I've worked with Min Ji on the Budget Committee for the past two semesters, and I have a great working relationship with her. I obviously have a great working relationship with Hedley and Jamie. I plan to do two things: I plan to introduce amendments to the Constitution establishing debate rules, which the senate will discuss and talk about because I think our discussions need to be more productive. They need to be more timely. I plan to discuss a master list of initiatives. Whether it be senate projects or goals, I plan to discuss it with the senate, and then with President Eliott and with Dean Angie so we can have an understanding of the attainable goals that we can do throughout the year. A lot of times, senators will go for senate projects and work on them for three months and then get told that it's not possible, so it'll be important to have a master list of attainable goals that we can accomplish.

Q: What are some goals/initiatives you’ve accomplished with the AAS already? Do you plan on expanding on or continuing with this previous work as you enter your new position?

A: One of the bigger long-term goals has been student representation on the board of trustees … One of the compromises [was] that they would publish summaries of their meetings which they did ultimately end up doing. I've been working on Grammarly Premium, which is a very hot topic. I have no promises that it's going to happen but I have taken over trying to get Grammarly Premium from two of the seniors that are not going to be able to work on it anymore … This is kind of small scale, but I recently got the dean to commit to putting picnic tables on the quad. There's two out there right now and I am working with her to try to get more over the summer so they're there for the fall … One of the biggest things that I've been working on is just trying to repair the relationship between AAS and the student body. A lot of times, that just looks like going out and talking to people. One of the problems when you get into senate is that it kind of cuts off your lifeline to the rest of the student body and that shouldn't be the case.

Q: Anything else to add?

A: It's just about restructuring senate, repairing the relationship with the student body, and just getting ready to work with the new freshmen. I want the new freshmen to come into a senate that they feel is functional and that they feel comfortable being in. I don't want there to be any division. I don't want there to be any drama. Obviously, I want to have fun, but I'm gonna keep a tight schedule as the agenda setter for the senate meetings. I'm going to make sure that everyone is heard and that we're trying to accomplish attainable goals.

Min Ji Kim ’25, Treasurer

Q: Why did you decide to run for this position?

A: I decided to run for treasurer because I love the Budgetary Committee (BC) and truly believe that I can lead the college and BC into a healthy budget. Also, I want to make the budget process easier to understand so the student body is aware of the money being spent and its processes.

Q: What are your future plans/goals now that you’ve been elected to your new position? How do you plan on achieving them?

A: My main plan is to lessen the budget deficit back to zero. Currently, due to the policies implemented by Dania, we were able to finish this year with around a 30,000 to 40,000 deficit instead of the original estimated amount of 70,000. [By] continuing the policies Dania has set up and talking with the administration to take more of the burden off of AAS and BC in regards to the money we spend, I hope we can go back to previous policies as soon as possible.

Q: What are some goals/initiatives you’ve accomplished with the AAS already? Do you plan on expanding on or continuing with this previous work as you enter your new position?

A: Unfortunately, I have not done much work with the AAS previously as an at-large member of the Budgetary Committee. One project I did work on [was] the major fair my freshman year, a tradition I hope is continued. It is also a senate project I plan on continuing to fund as long as it is within the budget.

Q: Anything else to add?

A: Nope. Happy to answer any further questions at a later time.

Hedley Lawrence-Apfelbaum ’26, Secretary

Q: Why did you decide to run for this position?

A: I think the secretary is quite different from other e-board roles. I get the impression that it’s a lot more administrative. I'm just committed to public service and this is a very good way to do that without having to really be involved with a lot more of the noisy political parts of AAS and focus really on the parts that matter a lot to people. But also, elections are very public-facing and managing those efficiently is always quite important. Also, I saw the job that Geoffrey did this year and I think it's very important that we have someone capable to do that. And there was no one else running, and I felt like it was something that I was up to the task of doing.Q: What are your future plans/goals now that you’ve been elected to your new position? How do you plan on achieving them?

A: So I think right away, what I'm gonna try to learn from the seniors who are about to leave about Qualtrics, the software we use, or the speech night, and how all that stuff is run because I think it's important that when we have new members in the fall elections committee, that that's run well. But what I also want to try to do is more outreach to get people to run.  I think we need to have a more organized way to try to reach out to groups on campus, affinity groups, and stuff like that, with people who are very active and engaged to try to get those voices in the senate. I think that's something we should be aiming for.

When I get here in the fall, I want to try to just take a look at all the at-large positions that we have for committees, because I think there's more time to talk with other members of the appointments board on how they would want to, again, try to encourage people to apply. I think that [at-large committee positions are] a very good way for students to get involved with specific causes on campus without having to be on senate, which I recognize is something that not all people want to do. As I said before, it would be good to do outreach to affinity groups on campus, resource centers, and clubs in general to find people who would be interested in helping out with some issues.

One really positive thing about the new e-board is [that] we're gonna see a lot more unity from the e-board. Because us freshmen, who now make up three-fifths of [the e-board] work really well together. We have a general mission and contacts with the administration to figure this out. Part of the work over the summer, and before next year starts, is to really pinpoint what our general goals will be. So we're not just pursuing multiple things without a clear idea. Also, we want to get input on what people want. One thing that the administration and ourselves want to do is find a way to make the college more fun for students. And I think that involves thinking about putting on more activities that really unite the campus and bring a lot of people together rather than just activities for a small group of people.

Q: What are some goals/initiatives you’ve accomplished with the AAS already? Do you plan on expanding on or continuing with this previous work as you enter your new position?

A: Yeah, so there are some other things that I'm currently working on even though I might not be in senate, that I still want to help with. So I think an example of that would be the Dreamer’s Committee, which provides advocacy and tries to find resources for undocumented students on campus. And so I want to find a way to continue working with that and supporting that cause, it’s something I care a lot about. I worked with senator Henry Pallesen and our senate project will be coming during the reading period, which is that we'll have drinks and candy out in Frost at night. That's a microcosm of the things we want students to be able to have which, is just unexpected fun things, whether it be food or just a little event to try to expand those rather than just being someone having to start a separate project to do that it should be more of a formalized process for things

Q: Anything else to add?

A: I think I could just summarize what my goal is, and I think this relates to almost all the questions you asked. I think we want to turn AAS from being something that's seen as inefficient or seen as ridiculous to something that doesn't need to be all that present or annoying, but does things that are present. We want to change it from AAS being the focus to the things that we do being the focus and I think that's a general goal.

Jaimie Han ’26, Judiciary Council Chair

Q: Why did you decide to run for this position?

A: I served on the Judiciary Council this past year. [We went] through the Constitution, we handled the impeachment trial, and we received some student petitions. I felt that I was equipped to handle the responsibilities of the job and I had a lot of goals after seeing the Constitution about editing all its inconsistencies [and] making sure that students knew what to expect from it. A lot of the student population looks at us and they don't understand what we do, or they don't think we do anything, which might be true for some part, but I wanted to change that kind of mentality.

Q: What are your future plans/goals now that you’ve been elected to your new position? How do you plan on achieving them?

A: Specifically, as the Chair I wanted to go through the bylaws and make sure that we have clear definitions of what all of our committees do because we have a lot of committees in the senate. I'm sure even our senators get confused about who's on what committee and what exactly they do. It's important that the students know who exactly to reach out for their specific concerns.I also wanted to work with Shane and Hedley, who got elected, to go through all of the things that we've heard students say that they want.

Q: What are some goals/initiatives you’ve accomplished with the AAS already? Do you plan on expanding on or continuing with this previous work as you enter your new position?

A: I definitely feel like I've built some admin connections over this past year. I helped plan the major fair that happened in the spring semester, [which entailed] a lot of emailing, a lot of just talking to different departments. With the connections I've established, it's easier for me to just go up to an admin member and be like, ‘hey this is what we're trying to do.’ Also, Lori is going to be the new president and she said that she had a lot of connections too and … can help us out with whatever we're planning.

Q: Anything else to add?

A: Shane and I are working together to implement new bias training for the former senators and the leaders of different clubs on campus. We hope to tackle anti-racism training, anti-sexism training, and learning how to handle difficult conversations that happen on the floor. [We want to make sure] that we're equipped with the right skills to recognize our perspective on different issues and the privilege that we may hold. We're also gonna be teaching the leaders of clubs how to get oriented with senate and the budget committee.