Slusher, Chan working to ensure a smooth transition

As Undergraduate Student Government President Holden Slusher and Vice President Ashlie Chan begin their last month in office, they hope to pass on projects they have started to the new administration and assist in the transition to a new administration and location.

In that time, Slusher and Chan will put on USG’s Council of Presidents, hold one last promotional event and primarily focus on transitioning.

“I just really, really want none of the projects that [we] started to fall off the map,” Slusher said. “It’s not just like a Slusher-Chan thing, and then they’re done. We do USG projects because students want it and that’s what should drive the change.”

Slusher did express some disappointment in being unable to accomplish certain projects he had hoped to. Among others, Slusher and Chan hoped to extend the hours at the Lyon Center and also increase safety in the libraries.

“You get to start a lot of projects, but you’re lucky if you finish a couple,” Slusher said.

Though these ideas did not come to fruition, Slusher hopes the projects will continue with the next administration.

One of their main focuses in their final weeks in office, Chan said, will be preparing the whole USG operation for its move to the new Ronald Tutor Campus Center. In the new location, USG will share a space with Program Board, which has had its own space in the past.

“It’s going to be bit of an effort to transition to working together because we each have our different working areas and we have our different ways of functioning,” Chan said. “We have to figure out how to allocate space and materials.”

Slusher said they will be working not just on transitioning to the new building but also on transitioning to a new administration. Slusher and Chan will work with President-elect Chris Cheng and Vice President-elect Nehi Ogbevoen as they pick their executives and cabinet and begin to select their projects for next year.

Slusher has taken notes on all the meetings with his opinions on how certain projects went and also detailing what happened. He is hoping these notes will assist the next administration in pushing forward some of the projects Slusher and Chan were not able to complete and will help give Cheng and Ogbevoen a head start as they enter their new jobs.

“The president has such a macro-perspective on the organization,” Slusher said. “I want Chris to feel empowered by me, so he’s aware not necessarily of the mistakes we made but so that he knows about something before he does them.”

USG Treasurer Ashwin Appiah also said he agrees it would be to the next administration’s benefit to look at what Slusher and Chan had done and move forward.

“One of the few things, especially during a transition, is to look at what the past administration did and work off of that,” Appiah said. “And a lot of times people don’t do that; they just disregard the past and they just start anew.”

With the transition to the new administration, Slusher and Chan are also currently in the process of determining which projects should be continued and which projects should be dismissed because of lack of support or feasibility issues. The projects chosen will be passed on to Cheng and Ogbevoen.

“We have to compile all the research for each project,” Chan said. “We have to make sure everything is up to date.”

One aspect of their administration that Slusher and Chan hope future administrations will continue is being connected to students and getting feedback from them.

“We want to make sure our outreach efforts do not end,” Slusher said. “We want everyone to know what we’re doing.”

To continue USG’s outreach efforts, Appiah is holding office hours so that students can come in and learn more about USG’s budget and where their money goes. The hours have not yet been determined, but they will be held biweekly.

Chan said she expects the next administration will run into many of the roadblocks that her administration ran into but encourages the new president and vice president to look at the “big picture.”

“I think it’s going to be very interesting because there are going to be a lot of new distractions; for example, the move to the new student center,” Chan said. “It’s important to not get bogged down by the details and take things one day at a time.”

Slusher said he credits what he feels is a successful year not just to the executive body but to the students and the administration.

“USG has had so many great successes not just because of the executive body of the organization but simply because we were blessed,” Slusher said.