The Basic Needs Senator is a new position for Associated Students (AS) and is up for election this year, and it’s also the most contested. As well as acting as a new voting member of the AS senate, the role of the Basic Needs Senator will focus on the general well-being of the student body, with a particular focus on the availability of food, housing security and mental health support to students.
Additionally, they will be the main AS financial aid liaison, working as a mediator to more directly connect the student body with the financial support services.
This new Senator will work on vents such as the food pantry, and also work as a kind of representative and watchdog, directly working with the Food Insecurity & Hunger committee and the University Care Manager. The full role of the position is still evolving, further duties to-be-determined by the new AS President.
To have a figurehead for such important things sounds like a good idea, and we’ll have to see how it further develops and how much more communication or change having the position will actually make.
The candidates for basic needs senator are Claire Alcock, Maddy Maurer and Carol Chen. You can look for their profiles on pages 4 and 5, or go to the Associated Students section of the CSUMB website to learn more about them and all the other AS candidates.
