The Undergraduate Student Government confirmed the executive cabinet for the upcoming school year at its senate meeting Tuesday. President-elect Mikaela Bautista and vice president-elect Emma Fallon also announced that current senator Jeremiah Boisrond was elected speaker of the senate through an internal voting process among senator-elects.

The cabinet will include  Karen Borglund as chief of staff, Emily Chang as chief communications officer, Avery Horton as chief financial officer,  Alisandra Edmonds as chief programming officer and Yasmeen ElFarra, who is reprising her role as chief diversity officer. 

All of the cabinet members have previous experience in USG: Borglund as external affairs committee chair, Chang as associate director of media, Horton as director of professional and academic research fund, and Edmonds as assistant director of FemFest for the Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment.

Bautista said applications for other officer positions in each department will be sent out Friday. 

In an interview with the Daily Trojan, ElFarra said her goal as next year’s CDO is to empower the advocacy department to collaborate with the legislative branch, funding department and communications department to give them resources and tools to ensure they are the best representatives of their student communities.

“Advocacy liaisons have a very critical role in engaging with various different campus communities, and they’re an integral part to making sure that community voices are at the table in all of USG’s operations,” ElFarra said.  

Edmonds said she is looking forward to working with all of the programming assemblies and hopes to emphasize “unity” within the programming department, in an interview with the Daily Trojan.

“I really want everyone to have a very good understanding of all the different programs that exist on the campus and make sure everyone is aware of what’s going on and the ways that they can uplift each other,” Edmonds said.

During the meeting, the senate unanimously approved senate bill 144-29, a resolution calling for USC to dissociate from the fossil fuel industry by partnering with green companies and ban fossil fuel company funding for academic research, after a 22-minute back-and-forth discussion. 

Environmental Student Assembly co-executive director Jon-Marc Burgess, advocacy liaison Valerie Kuo and director of advocacy Mia Moore-Walker presented the bill.

“Accepting fossil fuel research funding extremely contradicts USC’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis,” Moore-Walker said. “Fossil fuel companies continue to conceal, trivialize and neglect [the] climate change science.”

 The resolution asks USC to increase the green and sustainability-minded companies and organizations attending career fairs. SB 144-29 also encourages transparency and accountability from USC on the amount of funding that it receives from fossil fuel companies. 

Burgess said the bill aligns with a commitment that President Carol Folt made in her commencement speech. The bill also aligns with USC’s recent stance on sustainability, as they recently reached 50% climate neutrality. 

“She indicated that over a ten year span, she would like to divest fully from fossil-[fuel] research, and with that being said, over 100 plus million dollars have been divested so far,” Burgess said.