With the upcoming graduation of current Associated Students, Inc. President Isaac Julian, incoming president and current Vice President of Business and Finance, Mitali Jain is preparing to begin her term.
Jain first emigrated to the United States from India when she was 14 years old and went to high school in Cypress. She said her experiences as an immigrant student inspired her to get involved in student government.
Jain said she didn’t fully understand the culture when she first came to the U.S. and knows other students share the same experiences.
“If I’m struggling [with the culture], there’s definitely more students out there who are struggling. So that was the passion that sparked me to join student government,” Jain said.
Jain, a nutrition major going into her senior year, got her start in student government as a member of the ASI Beach Team and worked her way up to trustee at large on ASI’s Board of Trustees.
She said one of her proudest accomplishments as vice president of finance was successfully amending ASI’s policy on student origination grants.
Jain’s priority as president is to increase student awareness of ASI’s resources and get more student feedback on their needs.
“The resources that already exist. I want to highlight those because sometimes a matter of things are there, but students don’t see them,” Jain said.
Jain said that getting the message out to parents of students about the resources ASI offers is just as important as getting it out to the students.
Greater collaboration with student orientation, advising, and registration is something Jain talked about as being one way to help incoming first-year students understand what their annual fee is going towards.
“They could join clubs; they could apply for grants if that’s not their thing; they could travel to conferences, get research funding. All these things are just to say it’s there,” Jain said.
A more specific goal that Jain has in mind is a pilot program to give a set amount of free TAP cards out for the Long Beach transit system.
As vice president of finance, Jain is in a unique position as she has a significant say in the ASI budget for the next fiscal year. She pointed out that in this upcoming year’s budget, there will be more opportunities for students to work part-time in the various departments of ASI.
Jain said she and Julian would be holding transition meetings in the weeks following the conclusion of the semester. She said she hopes to begin the fall semester by attending Week of Welcome and introducing herself to the student organizations and the student body.
“I do believe that I need to make the first step to students once students feel comfortable talking to me,” Jain said. “I think that they would reach out to me more and tell me more.”