Five Minutes With... Jason Chu

ASUC External Affairs Vice President Jason Chu's responsibilities include representing student interests on the local, state and national level.

The Daily Californian sat down with him to discuss his plans for his upcoming term.

The Daily Californian: What are your goals for the upcoming year?

Jason Chu: The biggest thing I'm working on this year is the neighborhood watch program. We are essentially trying to market the idea to all the different neighborhood associations: the Greek community, the residence halls and the co-ops so that the ASUC can head this effort, which gets more eyes and ears on the streets, so that more crime is prevented.

We also have a Cal Lobby Day, (an annual student lobby day in Sacramento). I've had a chance to talk to the External Affairs vice president at Davis and since they are so close to us, we probably are going to do a larger Cal-Davis Lobby Day so that we have more students up there in Sacramento for that one day.

DC: What will be the most difficult thing to address this year?

JC: The biggest difficulty will be to make sure that the ASUC maintains its credibility-that we still have a high profile-because I think a lot of people during and after elections were confused and disheartened.

DC: What will the ASUC have to do to regain

credibility after the controversies of the

summer?

JC: The only way is to do our job and get things done. I think people realize that the ASUC will pull through for the students.

DC: How do you plan on inspiring politically apathetic students?

JC: Another thing I have been doing is a political speaker series forum that I've been working on with professor Alan Ross, who puts on the Political Science 179 class. A lot of political speakers come out and try to motivate students about the political process.

DC: What are you going to do differently this year to prevent fee hikes?

JC: In terms the student fee hikes, there really isn't a lot of transparency in terms of where it all goes to. I really want to work with the Committee on Student Fees to make sure that all the different departments really let us know where all the money is going. This is something we can get done immediately.

DC: What is a project that is coming up soon?

JC: Well, another big thing that we are doing is creating a voter registration coalition to make sure that there is a united effort on campus to get people registered. A lot of political student-groups are doing their own things and have their own voter registration cards, but as the ASUC we really want to make sure it's a unified effort ... to make sure we get as many people registered as possible.

DC: Now that we're wrapping up, anything else you want to add?

JC: As the five executives we have developed a six- prong plan to address a broad range of goals within our own offices, specifically diversity, sustainability, development of Lower Sproul, safety, Cal traditions-developing a new Cal tradition each year-and technology. Regardless of political party, these issues are important to all students.

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