ASCIT Winter Election 2022

Election Results

The election was held via Donut on March 7, 2022. Initially scheduled from 10 am to 11:59 pm, the voting period was extended to 1 pm on March 8, due to the website crashing about 30 minutes before the scheduled close.

RevComm met on March 8, 2022, to discuss the election result. No protests were received. RevComm certified the election in a 7-0-0 vote (Present were Gauld, Hayes, Randall, Juarez, Bhanushali, Chung, Azad).

There were two absentee ballots both ranked (Michael, NO, Katherine; Winter, NO; David, NO; Kayton, Terry, NO; Aditee, NO, Other Tickets). Other numerical results are available here: https://donut.caltech.edu/1/surveys/fxVd3KmA16Brh4RSib2KptWonm5rPVSznJ8fxdjKriLVJekFZyfWr7cymQHaSIUL/results

Voter turnout was 438. This is almost half the undergraduate population, and 4.5 times the people who voted in the last winter election. The following people have been elected into office:

ASCIT VP of Non Academic Affairs / Interhouse Chair Committee: Katherine Chang

Board of Control Chair: David Melisso

Board of Control Secretaries: Terry Huang, Kayton Truong

Conduct Review Committee Co-Chair: Winter Pearson

Editor of the California Tech: Aditee Prabhutendolkar

Candidate Statements

A PDF with these statements along with candidate pictures can be found here.

Note from RevComm Chair: Donut does not support all the formatting in the submitted version of statements. Consulting the document linked at the top of the page is recommended.

CRC Unaffiliated Representative (1 candidate)

Purvi Sehgal (psehgal@caltech.edu)

Hello everyone! My name is Purvi Sehgal, and I am a frosh in LLoyd running for CRC Unaffiliated Representative. The honor code is at the core of the Caltech community, so I am committed to upholding it as the CRC representative. I am a great listener and do not let preconceived judgements affect my decisions, so I am confident that I can give everyone a fair trial. As CRC rep, I hope to make trials faster and improve communication between students and administration. I want to represent all of you at the Conduct Review Committee, and I hope you will give me the opportunity to do so!

ASCIT President (2 candidates)

Aditi Venkatesh (aditiv@caltech.edu)

Hi everyone,

My name is Aditi Venkatesh and I am a junior physics major in Ricketts and Avery. I have been a member of ASCIT for the past two years as Director of Operations and I believe this experience, as well as my accomplishments while serving on the Board of Directors, make me the best candidate to be your next ASCIT President. Those achievements I wish to highlight include: ● Renovating the SAC: ○ SAC Study Room - Added new chairs, sofas, bookshelves, projector and whiteboard supplies ○ SAC Locker Room - Organized a SAC Locker Room Cleanup to free up storage space for new clubs ○ Jam Room - Repaired broken instruments and added stands, and repair and cleaning materials ○ ASCIT Storage Room - Systematized and facilitated house requests of interhouse supplies ● Planned and conducted Club Fair 2020 and Club Fair 2021 ● Reallocated funding to better suit the needs of clubs during the pandemic and ensure proper resources for the 2020-2021 school year; Redistributed funds over the subsequent 2021-2022 school year to account for the increase in new clubs on campus ● Collaborated with administration to convey and address student concerns as a representative on the Student Wellness Committee and the Club Committee to convey student concerns to admin and work together to figure out solutions ● Helped run social events with other members of ASCIT BoD including: ASCIT Formal, ASCIT Desiigner concert, Secret Snowman, ASCIT Chocolate Tasting, ASCIT Movie Night, ASCIT Game Night and Midnight Donuts ● Worked with Donut Development Team to add new features and improve usability

I have enjoyed working on these projects and would love the opportunity to continue to do so to a greater extent as ASCIT President. If elected, I hope to continue my work and further accomplish the following goals:

  1. Bring Back Traditions and Full Scale Events on Campus For the first time in two years, undergraduates are being allowed to resume, albeit slowly, parts of pre-pandemic events such as interhouses, house dinners, and in person club meetings. As President, I plan to work with the IHC and administration to bring back campus events in a manner that prioritizes the wishes of all undergraduates over those of the administration, while also abiding with the COVID conditions on campus. This will certainly improve the quality of social life for the student body and is especially important given that many of us have not yet experienced many of the activities that decades of Caltech students have come to love and enjoy.
  2. Increase Funding for Dual House Events To promote house culture throughout campus, as President I would like to provide houses the opportunity to run more events by increasing the budget for dual house events. This increased freedom and funding will hopefully lead to more dual-house events, thus increasing the total number of social events on campus, boosting house culture, and encouraging further inter-house friendships. Some previous examples of successful dual house events that I have funded include Fleming-Page Trivia and Avery-Lloyd Lunar New Year.
  3. Combat the Housing Crisis on Campus Throughout July of last year, we saw first hand the result of a situation in which there are more students than can be accommodated by Caltech housing. During room picks, many students were unfairly kicked off campus after being guaranteed a full four years of housing, and others were forced into inadequate, converted Marks Braun doubles. In order to prevent students from being placed in unfavorable housing situations again, I plan to work diligently with administration to create a more fair housing system in which, for example, housing fees would be reduced for those students placed in Marks Braun “doubles” and a list of Caltech subsidized off campus housing to help students kicked off campus find reasonably priced, reliable housing close to campus as well as potential roommates.
  4. Improve Mental Health Support on Campus While serving on the Student Wellness Committee I used the data from the Campus Climate Survey to increase awareness and advocate for bettering student mental health to all levels of administration. I plan on continuing to do this as President by working with Student Wellness Services to hire more diverse counselors and therapists to decrease wait time for therapy appointments, working with the PA Program to make Head PA a paid position and remove the limit for returning PAs, make Orange Watch a paid position through the Work-Study Program and reintroduce the Freshman Mentoring Program I helped develop during the pandemic, during which an upperclassman gets paired with a freshman to mentor, to strengthen freshman support on campus.
  5. Make ASCIT Finances More Accessible to Campus Organizations ASCIT controls the finances of many of its sub organizations including the ARC, IHC, Tech, Big T, Little T and many clubs. Currently, in order for each organization to use its allocated funds it must ask ASCIT for a specified amount for each item or event. As Director of Operations I have already begun working on changing this system, and as President I plan on continuing to institute a process that allows each individual entity under ASCIT the autonomy to access their own funds. This can be done by granting p-cards, creating a separate account, and allowing open access to funds so organizations are able to plan and run events and publications more smoothly.
  6. Address Food Issues on Campus and Make ASCIT Events more Food Inclusive Over the past year we have had problems with vegetarian and vegan options and limited religious options and cafeteria times for those participating in Ramadan, Passover, and Lent. Also, there have been reports of mislabeling of food items with allergens. I plan to work with the head of the food committee and CDS to address these issues. Traditionally ASCIT events such as Midnight Donuts have not included vegan or gluten-free options. As ASCIT President I hope to work with the new Social Director to make students with dietary restrictions feel more included in our food related events. I have already started doing this by ensuring that there were vegan, gluten, and nut free options for most recent Pi Day.

My other goals include:

  • Developing an ASCIT Student Project Fund to provide students with ideas on how to improve campus the funding to truly enact change
  • Working with Caltech’s Board of Trustees to bring the Mannion house back to campus
  • Make DEI an official subcommittee of ASCIT through RevComm
  • Bringing back the Bike Lending program at the SFL Library

I believe that in my past two years on ASCIT, I have gone above and beyond the traditional responsibilities of a Director of Operations to improve the student experience and would continue to do so as President. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to email me at aditiv@caltech.edu or find me on Messenger (m.me/aditi.venkatesh.10). Thank you!