ASB holds last meeting of the fall

The student senate welcomed new member, explores app creation and practiced lobbying in its final meeting of the semester

ASB at American River College held its final meeting on Dec. 4. Towards the end of the meeting, the organization took some time to go over lobbying practices.

The Associated Student Body held its final meeting of the semester on Dec. 4, where student representatives discussed last-minute details and updates before the upcoming winter break.

At the top of the meeting, President Naomi Dasari took time to introduce Zach Ebie, who was sworn in as director of finance for the student senate. Just like all newly sworn in members, Ebie was asked questions and explained his reason for joining.

“I want to get behind the scenes,” Ebie said. “I want to help the student body in getting their voice heard in any capacity.”

Next on the agenda was an introduction to App Builder U by Mark Sheppard, ARC’s Clubs and Events Board president. The tool is a turnkey app intended to help college student governments to increase student engagement.

“The main objective is to build student engagement and reach out to our fellow students,” Sheppard said while introducing the app. “The problem for student government right now is that student engagement is at an all-time low.”

Due to the expensive price of the app builder, however, Senator Stacey Burrows suggested turning to the Design Hub at ARC instead.

“The Design Hub does some things that really blow me away: virtual reality tours of the STEM building, app development, drones, all kinds of things that are pretty shocking that no one knows about that happened right on our campus,” Burrows said. “I think we could advocate for students in a whole lot of ways if we just operate closer to home.”

Both Sheppard and Dasari were all in favor of the idea and planned during the meeting to reach out to the Design Hub.

The last item on the agenda was a slide show presentation by Dasari on lobbying, mainly aimed towards those who haven’t lobbied at the capitol yet. With a Los Rios Community College District lobbying day scheduled to take place on Feb. 16, Dasari went over some basic lobbying practices and protocols to prepare student senators for that date.

A date for the first student senate meeting of the spring hasn’t been announced yet, but students can check asb-arc.org for updates on that information.