Kurth, Park look outward for cabinet
Newly elected Undergraduate Student Government President-elect Christian Kurth and Vice President-elect Ryan Park want candidates outside of USG to serve in their executive cabinet.
New era · USG President-elect Christian Kurth and Vice President-elect Ryan Park emphasized their experience during the February USG election. — Ani Kolangian | Daily Trojan
The executive cabinet works closely with the president and vice president during the year. The positions available in the cabinet include senior director of communication, chief of staff and treasurer.
They will be evaluating the applications on a number of different criteria, but Kurth said that prior USG experience is not necessarily required. Rather, the candidates will be evaluated on their dedication to the university and their ability to lead others to work as advocates for positive change.
“It’s important to us to have students who want to tangibly change the university for the better,” Kurth said. “We have a lot of talented kids in the system already who want to continue to be in the system, but we’re leaving the door open for other students who want to contribute new and different ideas.”
Current USG Vice President Vinnie Prasad said that rather than only considering students with USG experience, Kurth and Park will aim to diversify the committees by looking outwards to students with other backgrounds.
“It’s really important for us to reach out to other areas of the school where students don’t really know about these leadership positions,” Prasad said. “We need to do a better job of reaching out to athletes, international students, commuter students and other groups that are big parts of the student body, who should have a say in how their school is run.”
Kurth and Park will also be hiring a new executive director and finance director to head USG’s Program Board. Students can apply for director and assistant director positions to head the Funding Board and each of the six committees within USG’s Advocacy Branch.
Kurth said that a large number of students from the Greek community, in particular, are involved with the committees of the Advocacy Branch, and that a more diverse group of leaders is needed to accurately represent the interests of the student body as a whole.
“The majority of students who end up in the advocacy branch are Greek, and that’s great,” Kurth said. “But we really want to excite people in other areas of the campus who come from different backgrounds and who have different ideas and opinions.”
Applications for USG leadership positions became available Tuesday night on the USG website and are due March 15.