When students come to American River College, they may be surprised to learn of the presence of the Associated Student Body. It would be difficult to blame them for ignoring the flyer-laden enclave across from the coffee shop in the Student Center as they dash from commitment to commitment, offering only a cursory glance toward an office that seemingly offers little more than ID cards. What those students would be missing is the operations center for student representation at ARC.
Within this enclave, they may see the likes of ARC Student Senate Vice President Soraya Amin fulfilling her senatorial responsibilities in between completing the requirements of her 18-credit semester.
They may find ARC Student Senator Sapeidah Saeedi overseeing the Club and Events Board, which acts as the governing body of all of the chartered clubs at ARC, and also supports student-led events on campus.
They may also find ARC Student Senator Elizabeth Cherniyavskiy attending senate meetings in the boardroom down the hall from the Student Center when she’s not engaging in charitable work with middle schoolers in the Sacramento area.
These three friends from Mira Loma High School came to ARC as regular students, but soon found an opportunity to assist the greater student body through their election into the ASB.
“This whole experience is new to us. We have never been in student government, and student government in high school is a bit different,” Amin says.
This experience has been daunting for the first-year ASB senators. As they establish their purpose in the senate, surprises have come up that are defining their tenure in the role.
“Everything is super official. It’s like you’re working with government officials and it feels very professional and strict,” Cherniyavskiy said.
Although they may have found it initially intimidating, the new senators value what they learn in student senate and committee meetings.
“I got to go to a meeting and see what the process is in the background that the other students don’t see. I saw faculty members fight for their students. It was such a nice feeling and I was like, oh people actually care,” Saeedi said.
ASB isn’t just a random collaboration of students pushing agendas. It’s run under a constitution that dictates that the ARC Student Senate, ARC Clubs and Events Board, and the ARC Joint Budget Committee represent the interests of the collective ARC student body, operating under the auspices of the Los Rios Community College District Board of Trustees.
ASB’s mission is to act as the students voice for the college and district level grievance processes, as well as promoting students academic welfare by providing the mechanism for resource allocation. The ASB meetings themselves are held on Friday from 10:30 a.m. to noon in the boardroom behind the ASB center, where students have the opportunity to share those grievances to a consortium that then raises those concerns at LRCCD Board of Trustees meetings held monthly.
“It’s so much better when students are facing issues, they come to senate meetings and see a representative of their people,” Amin said. “They might feel more comfortable talking about those issues.”
The ASB meetings aren’t the only means to approach student senators, as the ASB members themselves are available for more direct communication through office hours and email addresses. With these alternative means of communication, students can feel assured that their representation is accessible outside of boardrooms and committee meetings. This is done to reassure students that may withhold their concerns if they feel that they can only be presented in a public forum.
“Some students don’t feel comfortable coming to a senate meeting and standing in front of the student government to talk about their issues in the first place just because maybe there’s a power dynamic,” Amin said.
ASB Student Senate President Alicia Szutowicz-Fitzpatrick, currently in her second year as a member of the ASB, finds the new senators to be a valuable asset in student representation.
“It’s about them and their own community, they care about everybody and it’s so nice to sit on a board with people who care so much,” Szutowicz-Fitspatrick said. “I have no doubt that they can handle any project given to them.”
It’s clear that the next generation of leaders emerging from ARC are actively addressing causes that impact their peers. Further, these causes aren’t necessarily going to be resolved in a single senatorial session, or even throughout the course of an academic year.
“Communication is definitely one of our biggest things that we hope to work towards the entire year and to create a platform for next year, too,” Cherniyavskiy said.
Cherniyavskiy went on to express the areas of improvement for the student senate, such as highlighting the resources and support that students at ARC have at their disposal.
“A lot of the students don’t know that these resources exist, and it’s really important for us to work on that and put it out there [to] reach more students,” Cherniyavskiy said.
Sometimes their efforts may feel like banging a head against a wall. Constitutional restrictions and bureaucratic red tape at the district level often make the senator’s desired changes seem unachievable.
When successes do occur, even some as slight as codifying student representation, the satisfaction of broadcasting the student’s voices is what keeps these senators inspired.
“[There are] some issues where maybe communication is not getting across because not everything is in our hands. It can be frustrating sometimes, but the entire process is fulfilling,” Amin said.
It’s clear that although students may not be aware of their efforts, these senators continue to push forward the collective endeavors of the student body they represent, and represent proudly.
