If students are considering not voting in the upcoming Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) elections that begin on March 15 and run through March 17, a little taste of the rainbow may change their minds.
ASI director of operations Tara Powers-Mead announced that there will be a polling booth on campus operated by the League of Women Voters.
The booth will be on campus on March 15 and 16 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. near the Kennel Bookstore.
“It will not be a pencil and paper polling station,” Powers-Mead said. “It will be a laptop where they can check into their email because everything is done online with a secure username and password for each student.”
As an incentive to get students to vote, 1,000 bags of Skittles will be available to give to students who show their receipt of confirmation for voting, Powers-Mead said.
Provost Lynnette Zelezny also spoke Wednesday about changes at the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which recently saw the resignation of its executive director.
She said that she had made a verbal offer to a potential interim candidate and was going through the required consultations before making an announcement.
Zelezny also announced her intention to move forward to combine the office of research and sponsored programs with the division of graduate studies.
“We’re moving forward immediately so that we will have a new dean of research and graduate studies here at Fresno State in July,” Zelezny said. “I think this will be very good for students.”
Chief information officer Orlando Leon also announced that part of Technology Innovations for Learning and Teaching (TILT) will join the information technology department (IT).
Leon said that the goal for IT was to do better to support the students and ensure student success.
“It could be as simple as the students in the dorms and they want to connect their XBox to the Internet so they could play games and play with each other,” Leon said. “Those things matter to me because it affects how our students perceive our Fresno State campus and their experience while they are here.”
No matter how trivial something may sound, like playing video or computer games, IT wants to make sure that students are satisfied with the technology services provided by the campus, Leon said.
ASI vice president of finance Anthony Farnesi wanted to remind clubs that sponsored activity grants would probably close by the end of March or beginning of April.
“People who want to do events by the end of the year need to be applying earlier to ensure they have the funding available before sponsored activity grants close out,” Farnesi said.
As of now, $67,000 of $90,000 has been awarded to clubs from the sponsored activity grant funds, Farnesi said.
The next ASI meeting will be March 16 at 4 p.m in the University Student Union, Room 312-314.