Student government at IVC expands to accomodate growth
Irvine Valley College has had a major turn around with the amount of students active on campus this year. Due to club members that are now in record-breaking numbers, Irvine Valley College’s Student Government is now making new positions in order to fit the incoming students.
“What we most succeed at this year is getting more members. We have no empty chairs,” said Patrick McDonald, ASIVC president. “I think right now we have at least 28 to 35 members when last year we only had 16, so we have doubled in that aspect.”
Most students have probably joined not only to be in part of something so great, but also because of the many benefits that ASIVC gives to the students on campus. Some of these benefits include priority registration, transcript notification, speaking skills, and getting to know many people that normally wouldn’t be met with. ASIVC members would get the chance to see how the campus works from the inside and outside.
Students who attend both Saddleback College and IVC are eligible to apply to both school’s clubs and student governments.
“If [a student] wants to join clubs at Irvine Valley College and is from Saddleback what we recommend [the students] to do is to have an established GPA [at IVC],” McDonald said. “So if somebody is taking classes at Saddleback and IVC then they are more than welcome to come and participate in our clubs and/or in our government.”
The ASIVC program is simply for the representation of the students on campus and to make sure they cater to all the needs and wants of the students. For example, last year for finals week the ASIVC government passed out free donuts, coffee, pencils, and Scantrons to the students for four days, twice a day.
“We know how everyone is panicking for finals week. They are hungry and they are running late,” said Meghan Pumphrey, ASIVC secretary. “We just try to help the students out and be there for them and represent them through government.”
Saddleback and IVC are totally different campuses—not only in the diversity of students but everything as a whole.
“I think that equally that they are both just great schools and either one that a student picks,” McDonald said. “I think that they should probably go to both to get the feel of which one they like more.”
Both schools’ student governments have only a few events in the year they collaborate on a certain issues such as, the basketball homecoming game (Saddleback vs. Irvine) and the South Orange County Community College District student trustee. However, there are some problems arising in that field.
The student trustee represents both schools. There is a huge debate on to fairly choose the student representative each year. Saddleback wants the position to be alternated each year and IVC believes that picking a person who is right for the job should be elected.
“The problem with [alternating] is that sometimes the person who is running for it is not always qualified for [the position],” Pumphrey said. “I rather have the best person rather than alternating. If they are the best [person] then that is fine.”
ASIVC believes in working together more frequently than the homecoming game because it would be better to have more opinions and views on each decision. McDonald said that he would like to interact with Saddleback and to be able to speak to Saddleback’s president to see how they run things. But he said that the opportunity has not come.
“We could probably work together more often, but it would take coordination between the presidents and the advisors and as well as the actual students involved in each ASG,” Pumphrey said. “So it makes it very complicated to get together. And it would probably be a lot of paperwork.”
ASIVC wants to make things easier and make college more enjoyable for the students so throughout the year they get vendors to entertain the campus as well as holding events such as the Halloween Spectacular or the Multicultural Day.
Recently the student government has considered changing their mascot. Currently IVC teams are referred to as the Lasers. McDonald said he would like something that revolved around the beach theme such as sharks or hammerheads. The results to this decision should be coming about sometime this year.
“When I started out I didn’t know anyone and I was a little timid, but now that I have been through student government and finally became comfortable enough to run for ASIVC president,” McDonald said. “I have learned a lot of new things, I have met a lot of new people, and I think overall it has made me grow at least 110% of when I started here. ASIVC is awesome!”