Wednesday, March 21 - Tuesday, April 3 2018 Weekly Print Edition
Vol. 104, Issue 28 www.thedailyaztec.com
San Diego State University’s Independent Student Newspaper Since 1913
Two write-in candidates join A.S. presidential fray by Will Fritz NEWS EDITOR
Two write-in candidates have jumped into the race for Associated Students president at the eleventh hour. Alexander Pearson and Megan Mueller both completed paperwork to run for president last week, according to A.S. Elections began Monday on WebPortal and will continue until 8:00 p.m. Thursday. Current A.S. Vice President of University Affairs Chris Thomas was the only candidate for the highest student position in A.S. until the two write-in candidates announced. Pearson said he made the decision to start campaigning after reading The Daily Aztec’s March 14 editorial about A.S. elections. “It was just stating how there’s only one candidate running for president and I thought that was not a democratic system at all, and I wanted to run as a write-in to just kind of put my voice out there and see what I could do,” he said. Mueller said she also didn’t like the idea of only one person running for president. “I was talking to my friend, who’s my campaign manager, and we were talking about how weird it was that there’s only one person running for A.S. president, and I personally couldn’t feel OK with letting that happen,” Mueller said. She said one goal of hers would be to reach out to students she sees as “under-represented” — especially commuter students. “They don’t have a place on
campus and stuff like that and I just want to bring students more together than they already are,” she said. Pearson said he wants to increase engagement between students and their student government. “I talked to about 300 students yesterday, and I was just asking them what they knew about Associated Students,” Pearson said March 20, “and I found that a lot of students, one, either didn’t know what Associated Students was, or they didn’t know what A.S. does day-to-day and how that affects their lives as students.” The computer science student said while he hasn’t previously been involved with A.S., he thinks the organization could use an outsider candidate. “I think it’s very nice to have someone coming in from (out of) A.S. to kind of get that different A.S. perspective,” Pearson said. He said he still has plenty of leadership experience without being involved with A.S., touting YourUnity, a startup he co-founded that’s aimed at helping community service organizations interact with students, and an internship with Hewlett-Packard in which he said he helped implement new technologies with the county of San Diego. “And finally, on top of that, freshman year, I was on hall council — floor representative — so I’m familiar with how the school interacts with its students,” Pearson said. Like Thomas and most of the
Madness at Viejas See our photos of the first and second rounds of the March Madness tournament at San Diego State’s Viejas Arena. Page 7
SEE ELECTIONS, PAGE 2
Photo by Kelly Smiley
Applicants, without acceptance letters, head to Explore SDSU By Nicole Kern STAFF WRITER
Prospective students descended on San Diego State for Explore SDSU over the weekend. The Admissions office held the annual event March 17 from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. as they worked to advance prospective students’ interest in the university. Organizations and clubs were in attendance as well as university ambassadors who held group seminars and tours highlighting SDSU’s campus life. Normally during Explore SDSU, prospective students know whether or not they have been admitted into the university. This year, however, acceptance
letters for prospective students will be sent out later than usual, making the atmosphere of Explore SDSU different than in years past. Matthew Hebert, director of student recruitment and school relations, said the reasoning acceptance letters haven’t yet been sent out is because of an increased amount of applications for SDSU for fall 2018. “With the latest graduate and freshman applications, we’re now over 100,000 applications for fall 2018,” Hebert said. “This is the most we’ve ever had in 121 years.” According to Hebert, there are a few other factors behind delayed admissions. “We received 93,000-95,000 applications for undergrad and
we have a backlog of data and same number of staffing, same founding and received more applications than before,” he said. Hebert said SDSU isn’t the only California State University campus that’s had to delay sending out acceptances this year. “This is happening across the CSU system,” he said. “The state is really interested in finding a place for every CSU-eligible applicant.” Lee T.D., admissions counselor and coordinator for Explore SDSU, said the event is not much different from years past, even though there have been delayed admissions. “The delayed admissions doesn’t really affect the event,”
Lee said. “We still have lots of people coming for the event.” SDSU ambassador Ashley Crowell said her role of giving tours during Explore SDSU was somewhat different this year because of the later enrollment. “When I was giving my tours I still had a lot of questions about when the university will send out the admissions decisions,” Crowell said. However, she found the overall experience to be beneficial for the prospective students. “It was still a super enjoyable experience knowing that some students were admitted and you were giving them their first campus tour as an admitted student,” Crowell said. “And I got to give them insight on my own Aztec experience.”
Ashley Crowell’s younger brother, Ryan Crowell, was visiting campus for Explore SDSU from La Verne, Calif. He said the event fulfilled his expectations. “I really enjoyed Explore SDSU,” said Crowell. “It was awesome that there was so many different seminars for students to go to and you got to meet other students that were looking at SDSU to.” Crowell was disappointed to have not been accepted yet, but had good things to say about the overall event. “It was kind of a bummer to go to Explore SDSU and not know you were admitted but overall it was a really great experience,” Crowell said.