Many have asked what President Britt Rios-Ellis’ focus would be when she started this past July. Those who attended the Associated Students Inc (ASI) Town Hall last week would tell you it was enrollment of new students and retention of current students.
On Tuesday, October 1st, 2024, in the Stanislaus State University Student Center, President Britt Rios-Ellis and ASI President Miranda Gonzalez (Senior, Business) sat down with students and answered their questions in a town hall meeting called “Student Government Town Hall – Pizza with the Presidents.”
According to Maria Marquez Mendoza, ASI Student Government Supervisor, the purpose of this events was to “discuss a campus hot topic with guest panelists (who tend to be faculty, staff, or campus administrators) and provide a space for students at-large to ask questions to guest panelists during this event.”
Students had the opportunity to submit questions ahead of time through an online form or to submit them at the event using flashcards.
Rios-Ellis stated in her introduction at the beginning of the event that the number one thing she loved about CSU Stanislaus was the students. She demonstrated this by spending time before the event walking around and talking with students who came to the event.
In an interview after the event, she stated, “For me, it was just great to see the involvement and see so many students. I’m so grateful that so many people came out and to see all of that energy and all of that commitment to making Stan State even greater.”
This would set the tone for the entire event.
Students in the town described that it meant a lot to them that she was involved with events like this.
“She seems very engaged with the campus and it’s something really great to see, because you don’t see that with almost every President,” said Roberto Herrera (5th Year, Criminal Justice).
Gonzalez talked about how she is focused on implementing the university hour that ASI proposed last school year.
She also is working on finding space on campus for an interfaith prayer room. Right now, the focus of those efforts are looking at room 209 in the Vasché Library, as it has been used as one in the past. However, she mentioned in the following week’s public ASI board meeting on October 8th that they are receiving pushback from the library staff, so currently ASI is working to understand their concerns.
Juan Pablo Nevarez (1st year, Math) stated he struggles to attend events on campus.
“A lot of the events are during my classes. So I show up to school to do my classes and then I never end up going to any events. And so my campus life is kind of diminished because of that,” Nevarez said.
Students seem in favor of a university hour as Herrera also mentioned time constraints make it hard for him to attend events while balancing a class schedule and two work schedules.
With her focus on students, President Rios-Ellis is working on getting the word out there to prospective students about Stan State. She referred to it as “getting the signal out.”
According to President Rios-Ellis, enrollment sits at 7,790 students, while Stan State is built to handle 10,000, which means tuition dollars and dollars from the state are down. She said a lot of that is the pandemic, but she also stated another reason.
“But there’s also a larger, more macro issue that’s happening throughout the country. And that’s the real question, the worth of a higher ed degree,” President Rios-Ellis said.
According to Rios-Ellis, her focus is getting the word out there about the worth of a degree from Stan State. She talked extensively about the different places Stan State has ranked: 9th best public institution in the nation according to the Wall Street Journal, 4th for return on investment, and many more.
According to the president, on average, it takes about 6 months for a Stan State student to pay back their cost of education.
Christian Guerrero (1st year, Social Science) expressed appreciation that they are working on getting more students but wished they had gone into more detail about how they were going to get more students.
President Rios-Ellis did mention they are working on getting digital billboards out on the edges of campus and are looking at putting up billboards on the highway, but all of these do cost money, which the President mentioned the university is short on.
According to Gonzalez, ASI is working on its own efforts to help with enrollment. Every year, ASI gives out 15 $1,000 dollar scholarships to current Stan State students called the ASI Warriors Giving Back Scholarship. At their board meeting on September 24, the board voted to shift 5 of the 15 scholarships to a scholarship for high school leadership students that were coming to Stan State as a way to encourage student leaders at the high school level to come to Stan and to help ASI recruit new student leaders.
In an interview at the end of the night, Gonzales encouraged all students to reach out to their ASI board of directors or her if they have questions or concerns.
ASI will hold its next town hall on Tuesday, October 22nd. It is titled Student Government Town Hall – Meet Your Campus VPs. It will be held in the SC Valley Multi-Use Room from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
According to the ASI website, they describe it as: “Join Student Government for a town hall to meet your campus, Vice Presidents! Ask questions, get to know their roles and what they do for you.”
If you would like to submit questions for this town hall you can do so through this form.
