The Associated Students Inc. held an “Elections Reveal” event at the University Student Union South Plaza Thursday, with Mitali Jain being announced as Long Beach State’s new Associated Students Inc. President.
In-person and on Instagram live, Jain won the presidential role with 3,007 votes in the election, beating out Fatima Zeferino and Michael A. Stemage II.
To her surprise, the announcement felt “surreal” to Jain as she never expected to be the next ASI president.
As the new president, her mission to students will be to advocate for them, no matter what the problem.
“I’ll make sure I advocate for students and listen to their concerns, and make sure that they’re going [to campus] as an individual, mentally, physically and emotionally,” Jain said.
One of the things that she’ll advocate for is Cultural Resource Centers, as she believes it is a big issue on campus.
Jain will communicate with financial benefactors to try to meet with students’ basic needs and make those resource centers happen.
Before becoming president, Jain was ASI’s Vice President of Finance, supporting students’ voices and making them heard.
She intends to continue her work as president to hear out the many problems students may face, as the former ASI president Isaac Julian has in the past.
Second-year finance major Samira Flores was one of the students that voted for Jain and hopes that Jain being a woman of color will bring more equality for other women in terms of voting.
“I think that she has the skills to help us all [and] kind of be like a voice for all of us,” Flores said.
Since high school, health administration major Lynette Travis has always valued student government. She said she paid attention to who was the right fit for ASI when voting.
“I think it’s really important to know these are the people who are going to be advocating for me, specifically on campus,” Travis said. “I need to make sure that I feel safe within the people that I talked to, in the groups that [I’m] not voting for, and everything.”
Travis says she voted for Jain and is satisfied with the results of the election, feeling like Jain is a strong candidate for the role.
Along with the other candidates Travis voted for, she feels that Jain’s dedication to advocate for students, which Travis felt “a really strong interest” in.
Jain is thankful for the students that voted and believed in her. She will continue her work for students as the new ASI president of CSULB. She takes office on June 1.