3rd year, Senator At-Large, Political Science Major with a minor in Economics, Bylaw Review Committee, Vice-Chair of the Budget and Finance and Student Activities Committee SLATE: ReVAMP

Hello Bobcats!

My name is Stacey Ascencio, a third-year Political Science Major with a minor in Economics. For the 2017-2018 academic year, I proudly served in ASUCM as a Senator-at-Large. During my time as a senator, I worked on the creation of the Bylaw-review committee with the Internal Vice President and improved existing bylaws to enhance ASUCM. Throughout my term, I strongly advocated for student’s rights and safety. I worked with my fellow Senators and hired student staff to focus on issues that impacted our students such as food insecurity, transportation, water filtration, and library initiatives while being Vice-Chair of the Budget and Finance and Student Activities committee.

I earned a great deal of experience through my time in ASUCM. Nevertheless, not all of what I discovered has been positive. Most students join ASUCM to make a difference. However, that work is hindered with the toxicity, drama, and political chaos within ASUCM. I believe ASUCM has a lot of potential to turn into an organization that is respected by administration, students, and UC campuses. However, it needs the right leader to thrive. I believe that leader is me! Most of the issues that ASUCM faces, are rooted in the lack of communication throughout the organization, (including Executive, Senate, Inter-Club Council, Campus Activity Board), Registered Organization on Campus, and students. ASUCM Bylaws states that the President is “To give information relative to the state of the ASUCM”, nonetheless one person cannot properly handle all communication. Thus, if elected President I would extend communication responsibilities to the rest of the Executive Board, more specifically the Internal Vice President. Together, we would help each other relay administration messages and student opinions. No fruitful communication results in overlooking the students’ frustrations and concerns. I envision this organization focusing on critical advocacy. ASUCM officials will create a solid mission

statement to hold ourselves accountable. Executive members and I will be required to check in every two-weeks on all the branches to make sure they are executing the will of the students as mentioned in the mission statement. Furthermore, the Internal Vice President and I will create three separate retreats for student leaders. As it has been done historically, there will be a Senator retreat. But, I want to improve on that by requiring all Executive members to attend a retreat to grow as a leader. The last retreat will be for all ASUCM branches to come together and bond. This will help friendship grow and reduce the toxicity within ASUCM. An organization breaks when there is no communication. Us working together to maintain communication is the solution!

I am positive that all the qualifications you are seeking in your future President can be found in me. I have the collaboration skills, work ethic, and determination you are looking for. If chosen, I will give my 110% toward ASUCM. I will be committed towards the success of students. Thank you for your time, I hope you choose me to serve you for the 2018-2019 academic year!

4th year, Bioengineering/Pre-Med with Math minor, Student Alumni Association, ESW, ACCESS

Dear Student Body,

In order to truly introduce myself, I must take you back to 1947. That was the year my grandparents lost their homeland where they had lived for seven generations. With no savings, they literally only owned the clothes they wore and struggled hard to build life anew. At 15 years old, my grandfather started work as a laborer but never lost sight of education and finally received his Masters in Journalism. My grandmother is Masters in Economics and both my maternal grandparents are physicians. They valued their education, it sustained them, fulfilled them and these are the values they imparted to my parents and me. As their ambassador, I hope to carry these values forward.

I am passionate about community outreach and education.  I have been tutoring since high school and even now I tutor a couple of high school kids here in Merced. On campus, I am a club officer of both Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) and Student Alumni Association (SAA).  

As Vice-president of Student Alumni Association (SAA), I helped organize several Alumni Career Chat Employment Success Series (A.C.C.E.S.S.) events for varying career paths such as education, management, marketing, psychology, and technology. In order to land the ideal job, we also need volunteering, school-funded projects, and internships. Alumni are great mentors and I have found their advice and support invaluable. I want to help boost post-grad employment by creating an environment where students with alumni help can get project experience easily.

We have serious issues concerning counselling services for all, transportation and nutrition and while our young university has been working towards solving these problems, clearly more needs to be done. Managing our meals especially during exams, is a challenge for many of us. I have helped host several fundraisers for providing free meals for students and hope to continue doing that.

I am the lead for ESW’s flagship project, Aquaponic Greenhouse. The food grown will be donated to the dining center. I truly believe in Aquaponic farming and believe it is the solution to many of our water problems in Central Valley. We have secured the grants and are close to making an early version of this greenhouse a reality.

Lastly, I wanted to say that we the student of UC Merced are uniquely positioned to reach out to the Central Valley communities. An important program could be mentoring middle and high school kids. I’m aware of the various programs and events on campus and I invited one of the kids I tutor to Engineering ACCESS, something he and his parents really appreciated.  

I have a long association with Merced as my mother completed her residency here and remember UC Merced grow up from a farm. As a Bioengineering/Pre-Med student with a math minor and going into my fifth year, I have seen this campus grow.   

As ASUCM President I will continue to  #Love the UC and the City of Merced.

Thank you.

3rd Year, Political Science Major, President of Democrats at UC Merced, Vice President of Recruitment for Pi Lambda Phi Fraternity

Hello Bobcats, I am running a campaign focused on empowering the average UC Merced student, a campaign focused on us. I feel as though for far too long, ASUCM has not done a proper job of advocating for issues affecting the average student. As an individual who has never been personally involved with ASUCM with over two years of being president of a club here on campus, I believe I have the skills and qualifications necessary to change the ASUCM institution as an institution which works for the student body and fights for students, not for the Senators or Directors. If I were to be elected President, I would focus on improving relations between UC Merced and the city of Merced, as I believe there a number of lingering issues which affect the city of Merced. There are a number of off-campus organizations which are focused on improving the city through different means, and I would make it my duty to coalition-build with those groups and make their information readily available to students who are looking to volunteer and improve their community. One problem which primarily affects Merced is the outstanding childhood poverty rate, which is one of the highest in the state, meaning that there are hundreds of children here in our city who do not know when their next meal will come and have a number of other issues which we often overlook and need to address. We need to create more volunteering opportunities and resources to help decrease this poverty rate and assure that we are not turning our back on those hundreds of children in a city which prides itself in having a UC campus. We want to make it every student’s obligation to improve the city of Merced, as we call this place home for four years, I believe it is our duty to make our home a better place for future generations. With that said, I also believe that we need to invest in institutions such as the Blum Center here on campus, which provides us with important research and insight into what are some of the most common problems students face on a daily basis. One such issue I would like to highlight and work on addressing if I were to be elected President is food insecurity, as a significant portion of our students actually struggle to put food on the table. As President, I would encourage all students who are affected by food insecurity to apply for programs such as SNAP which provide funding assistance for groceries. I do not believe any student should ever have to struggle with hunger and I will work tirelessly with organizations both on-campus to provide more resources to our students struggling with food insecurity.