Shelly Michael, Jeffery Chang and Dave Wardojo are the three candidates running to be the 2019-2020 DASB President. Students can vote through MyPortal from March 4 – 8.

All interviews were conducted individually

Q: Why do you think you’re fit to be president?

Shelly: I want to have a lot of individual’s voices heard and I want to listen to those individuals in order to represent them… I could really do that and encompass that. Listen to people, see what they need and then reflect on that when making decisions. I think I could be able to listen and express student concerns in order for us to have an effective student government.

Jeffery: When I reach a trouble, I won’t stop until I figure it out, or I’ll ask for help from people who I think might have the answers. And always do my best to solve problems. And ever since I was young I’ve been a team player, so it makes me care about those around me. If other succeed, that’ll bring the most joy out of me.

Dave: I am fit to be president because both of us, me and George (Lukman), are already willing to help people. We want to help people more. I see DASB president and vice president position as the most effective way to reach out to more people. We want to help and get more involvement here at De Anza.

Q: What are your priorities as DASB president?

Shelly: I want to have a better connection between student government and the students that go to school here… Another thing is environmental consciousness… we have a book drive right now, but it’s not very popularized, people come in and we give away like eight books or so. We could do a grand scale of that where people take all their used books and can drop them off in a really nice box in the center of the cafeteria and people walk by it all the time. Another thing I really want to stress is equity… Right now I am going to be completely candid, we do not have the best representation in student senate…So what I aim is to get people from so many different programs and have them represented.

Jeffery: Involvement for one, and awareness. Because these two are the main problems for why we don’t get enough feedback. Not many people know about what DASB does, and not many people know why they should be involved, because they’re just here for a short time so then they think “get in, get out, focus on their studies.” … My platform is breaking barriers, and that’s barriers between international students and residents of California, and between cultures. This way we can all get along and have a good conversation with each other to know what needs to be done, and who needs help immediately. Raising awareness would get students to be motivated to ask for change and that way senators know what needs to be addressed.

Dave: My priorities are to improve the involvement of all De Anzanians here… In my program we have a Virtual Club, a committee that all De Anzinians can join…with this committee they can be involved in the DASB senate program… The DASB senate would report financial things that all the students can see and they can also give feedback on… Our concern is to save paper more. We want to propose spray bidets to not waste paper towels. It may be expensive, but for the long term it will save the De Anza cost in water and it’s more hygenic too. The other program is the Safe Route. We will work with the police to build a route that is safer, and the police will pay attention to this route.

Q: What is your leadership/ student government background?

Shelly: I started in student government and newspaper when I was in Israel…Then at Fremont High School I was the first president to be elected in French Honors Society and I served both my junior and senior years…I am also in student senate, I go to the IBPT meetings… I stay in touch with the VIDA office, and SAGA… I worked with SIREN, and helped register a bunch of voters, and canvased for them as well. I was in the Ro Khanna campaign, and canvased for a couple months. I did theater in high school, and I taught theater classes in my community center for senior citizens, working on self confidence for four months. I was also a student tutor for four years and I helped students with a variety of subjects.

Jeffery: Currently I am a senator, I ran midterm elections. I am part of environmental sustainability, that’s the first one I joined. And then I joined legislative affairs, and student rights and services. Another one is a committee for the mascot change, so I’m pushing to get administration to change that. … My last major leadership was in boy scouts. I was in boy scouts for too many years, but enough years for me to learn about leadership and the different types of leaders and which one I wanted to be, which was one that leads by example. I did not achieve the rank of eagle, but I still managed to teach the people in my patrol how to be leaders, and they went from very fussy kids to strong independent boys.

Dave: I was also apart of the senate in my high school, one of the leadership schools in Indonesia. One of the biggest influence is competition between schools in our city, Jakarta. I was apart of that committee to reach other schools to invite them to our competitions or having fun together and build connections. When I came here, I was the sound operator in charge of the music at the prom nights. I was the pianist, and managed all the sound system. This would be my first act in student government at De Anza.

Q: What will you do to ensure that student voices are heard at De Anza?

Shelly: I want to do an outreach box, so I want to have an ask the DASB questions and put a sturdy box in front of the library where students can slip in their questions and have paper and pens for them to write on…I also want a really big poster in front of the cafeteria or somewhere where lots of people can see it, with better advertisement for DASB sources that lists the Instagram page, and an email that people can contact us through, just so people have those resources right in front of them. I wanted to talk to different programs around the school and encourage them to come and attend DASB meetings because we don’t have representatives from everything.

Jeffery: Tabling, I think that’s a good way, and I will try to get the websites and boards updated more frequently, because they don’t update it as often as they should be. Members of the student body can’t know when the meetings are, so I think that’s important. Just being a little more inclusive and talking to whoever, and possibly doing more anonymous concerns. This way students have an outlet for their concerns and then we will have the shared governance do their job and talk to the people in charge of each concern.

Dave: We have the program Loyal Ear. If we (George Lukman and I) were elected president and vice president, we will make an online platform so all De Anzinians can give their voice onto this platform, anonymously or with their name. We will make this platform and build the Virtual Club that will consist of De Anza clubs and programs and we will build this platform together so it will be all integrated. This will be all De Anzinians’ project for all students.

Read our Q&A with the student trustee candidates here.