Max Jimenez, President
“I am excited to be your newly elected SUA president! I will be staying in Santa Cruz for the summer to start planning what the next year will look like. If any of you have ideas and want to chat, reach out to me and I would love to meet up. I can’t wait to work on making sure that the “union” in SUA stays true to its word.
I am so impressed to be a part of UC Santa Cruz’s first all-womxn officer corps. I am confident that we will do amazing things this upcoming year. Thank you to those who have supported me and believed in me throughout this campaign. Y’all inspire me. Let’s do this!”
Tamra Owens, Vice President of Student Life
“Over the summer I’ll be focusing on finding private funding or grants to support the food pantry in order to relieve the burden off of student fees and the SUA deficit. I’m hoping the officer corps this year will be more willing to do outreach to students and raise awareness about the SUA, who we are, and what we can do to improve the quality of life for students on campus.”
Alice Malmberg, Vice President of Internal Affairs
“Right now, I’m learning everything I can about the Vice President of Internal Affairs Office and how I can meet student needs by attending SUA Vision Committee and SCOC [Student Committee on Committees] meetings and public events for identity organizations. The first of my main platforms I plan to undertake pertains to student advocacy for TAPS [Transportation and Parking Services] — specifically, pushing to get student representation on the Santa Cruz Metro Board of Directors. I’m still currently in the research phase of that project, but hope to meet with members of the metro board over the summer. The other officers and I are planning to meet up this weekend to bond and talk about our goals for the year.”
Jessica Xu, Vice President of Academic Affairs
“I am grateful to serve as the vice president of academic affairs for the coming academic year! My goals for the upcoming year include making testing materials free for all students, creating a campus-wide textbook lending library and creating a student success advisory committee. I will start researching how to start these initiatives this summer by reaching out to administrators and faculty to garner support and explore how to best execute these programs. Given my work in this office this year, these ideas are among what I feel are necessary for this campus. However, I understand that everyone’s academic experiences are unique, so I hope to begin outreaching to students and various organizations that are geared toward advancing student success. I am very excited to work with the other officers and start collaborative projects with them. In particular, I hope to work with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to make sure that all students feel safe and comfortable in the classroom to optimize their academic success and improve their overall experience at UCSC. In addition, I would love to work with the Office of Internal Affairs to appoint a diverse student body to advise the vice chancellor of student success.”
Katherine Lê, Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion
“Next year, one of the largest projects coming from the VPDI [Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion] Office will be the UCSC Womxn of Color Conference. In order to successfully reinstate the Womxn of Color Conference (WOCC), I hope to convene a committee for the WOCC and aim for the conference to take place in spring 2018. I am especially excited to coordinate the launch of the Womxn’s Coalition next year with student leaders. I would also love to work with campus leaders to formulate a community-centered foundation for the Diversity Commission and look forward to pursuing the Accessibility Leadership Internship resolution demands in order to address campus ableism. Additionally, I look forward to maintaining communication with the UCSA [University of California Student Association] Students of Color Conference ad-hoc committee in order to prepare to send a delegation of UCSC students to the conference while also ensuring that the conference will be a space sensitive to student needs. Most planning will take place over the summer in order to prepare for the next academic school year. I hope to purposefully collaborate with the officer corps in order to build a stronger sense of community within the SUA space for students while fostering an inclusive atmosphere for growth, student agency and mutual respect.”
Judith Gutiérrez, who was unable to be reached for a comment, was re-elected as vice president of external affairs.
