Faye Hayes, a third-year political science major running with the “ACT Now” slate, is one of the three candidates for ASUCI president. Faye currently works at Mesa Court, serves as the high school outreach coordinator for the ASUCI Executive Vice President (EVP), and acts as a liaison between the Cross Cultural Center and its umbrella organizations. She coordinates with administrators at high schools and members in the EVP office to create a successful bridge from high school to college for students.
Faye believes that her experience as a coordinator with EVP, and her time as a liaison for the Cross put her in a place that can create an administration with the needs of the student body in mind. As a collaborator with the Cross and the umbrella organizations that operate for students, Faye feels that those skills will be the foundation for her deliberations on and off campus.
Haye’s slate, “ACT Now,” also includes Executive Vice President candidate Sanaa Khan and Student Services Vice President candidate Thomas Doan.
“The ACT NOW campaign stands for Advocacy, Community, and Transparency. As president I would proactively seek to uphold these ideals,” Hayes said on the slate’s website.
If she is elected, Hayes feels it is important to bridge the gap between ASUCI and the student body by increasing ASUCI’s visibility on campus with boothing, personally visiting different organizations on campus, and hosting more open forums. She wants to be available to students so that they can use ASUCI resources to advocate for issues they care about and utilize all that the school has to offer students.
Both Hayes and her opponent list campus climate as the top priority with both providing very similar responses on what is deemed important, though Hayes claimed that campus climate means something different to each individual.
“The role of OP (Office of the President) is to be an advocate for students on campus climate,” Hayes said.
In order to take on campus climate, Hayes has a variety of goals to take on that issue. Some of her ideas include creating a student advisory council as a part of a safe campus initiative, hosting a series of workshops on identity, and promoting a more inclusive environment for out of state and international students.
According to her platform Faye would like to create what she calls the Student Advisory Board, which would comprise of students from different communities on campus that would work for the betterment of student life. This idea stemmed from past problematic events that have occurred on campus.
To remedy that, the advisory board would be a safe place were students in a certain cohort could reach out directly to the office of the president. They would work as liaisons for their community in concert with the Office of the President so that they address concerning issues before they grow out of proportion. Beyond the destined advocacy work Faye was still unsure how the board would be comprised, operated, and to what extent the powers or recommendations by the board would have.
She would also like her office to continue expanding on the current “Language is Powerful” campaign and hosting weekly workshops on identity called “My Identity Matters.”
A Hayes administration would also focus many of its resources to promoting the on-campus centers that support students such as the CARE (Campus Assault Resources and Education) Office and others so that more students can access them. She feels that they are currently not visible to students and that by having an attached stigma to them many students bypass the help that is there and their needs never get addressed.
Additionally, Hayes’ platform states that she would work with other executive offices on issues such as the Anteater Express, defending ethnic studies, and looking into securing an on-campus 24 hour study space.
To read more about Hayes and her platform, please visit elections.uci.edu and actnowuci.com.