Meet the 2025-26 Associated Students Special Elections candidates

Santa Monica College’s (SMC) Associated Students’ seal in the Cayton Center at SMC on Friday, April 4, 2025. (Jake Crandall | The Corsair)

The election results for the Santa Monica College (SMC) Associated Students (A.S.) 2025-2026 Board of Directors were revealed last month. However, a Special Election is taking place to fill the remaining roles on the board.

The first and highly contested position is the A.S. Secretary. The Secretary is responsible for keeping meeting minutes, posting agendas and maintaining an accessible file containing all A.S. documents. The candidates running are: Alicia Lewis, Erick Wang, Farah Naja, and Ivan Jacobo.

Secretary candidate Erick Wang strives to create an exciting and inclusive environment in student government. He is currently the Inter-Club Council (ICC) delegate for the Economics Club and attends biweekly ICC meetings in order to relay the information collected to his club.

Attending these meetings and holding the title of ICC delegate has helped develop his communication skills and time management. “It’s not easy to always go to these meetings sometimes because I’m such a busy person,” Wang said.

“I want to be a lot more transparent with the students,” Wang said. He explained how a majority of students are undereducated about the student government. He hopes to be more transparent with students and gather their opinions through polls or surveys.

Wang says he will help students' voices be heard. “That’s the role of the student government; to make the lives of the students better,” Wang said. He identified a big disconnect between the student government and the students.

Wang’s solution is to post more frequently on social media, and introduce himself to students in person in the SMC main quad. “If they have any questions or concerns they can come and, you know, always talk to us,” Wang said.

Wang was secretary in his high school government and built his way up to the title, starting in middle school. He attended school in Calgary and says his school was competitive so he wanted to stand out and improve the school as well.

Farah Naja, Secretary candidate, always had an interest in helping things run smoothly and keeping track of important details. “In my academic work and extracurricular activities, I have mastered the skill of managing my time, making schedules, taking notes, and coordinating with others which are really important skills to becoming a secretary.” She favors teamwork and ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Naja is a political science and philosophy major and explained how this major would prepare her to become secretary if elected. Political science, she said, allows one to be more social and explore other points of views, in addition to experience with discussion-based learning. Meanwhile, philosophy allows her to explore other mindsets.

“You have to use your own mindset but also incorporate other people’s mindsets so you can have something that balances out everyone,” Naja said, regarding the role of secretary.

She is a contractor at her law firm, where her duties are taking files, scanning them and organizing them into folders. She highlights her experience with scheduling and how she works with the firm to make sure the schedules are correct. There is primarily email communication at the firm and every week she has to drive and pick up mail which taught her how to create a schedule.

“The first thing I'd really like to do is connect with students,” Naja said. She hopes to reach out through email, social media or in person. “I want to strive to be approachable on campus,” so people can be comfortable with voicing their concerns, Naja said.

Naja finds it important that students know about the A.S. meetings and strives for an open door policy. She hopes students will voice their opinions on campus at meetings. “I'd like to bring voices inside but then also while I'm inside I'd like to stay organized; keep everything in a steady flow and be able to just have a fun community inside the meetings and outside as well,” Naja said.

Current Director of Publicity Alicia Lewis is running for Secretary alongside her Slate partner, Aylen Gutierrez, Director of Publicity candidate. “My slate (A&A Impact) mostly revolves around the main pillar of connection and communication with our students on SMC,” Lewis said.

Lewis is passionate about ensuring all students are comfortable with the students representing them in the student government. She hopes that she can allow students to understand how student government works.

Lewis says SMC is a very diverse campus with international and first-year students. “Both me and Aylen want to make sure that we cater to the diverse needs on our campus,” Lewis said.

As director of publicity in A.S., Lewis has attended student government meetings and understands how they function. She urges that promotion is a beneficial factor. “I am currently working on merchandise for our associated students and I've also been promoting our A.S. elections,” Lewis said. Additionally, she works on social media to attract the attention of students.

She highlighted the importance of accommodating students that are deaf and blind, and giving a voice to all students on the campus. She says students are often intimidated by student government.

Lewis explains she has been the Publicity Director for the last couple months. Through this role, she has had the opportunity to connect with other Directors and advisors at the Cayton Center. “Not only have I utilized the resources here at SMC but I’ve also connected with my community here,” Lewis said. She learned how the campus functions during her time as Director.

While she acknowledges the Director of Publicity is an important role, she wants to apply her skills to foster a better environment for students. She and Gutierrez go around campus to approach students and ask them what change they want to see while referring to themselves as the student government. Lewis plans to educate students on the terminology of the student government so there is less intimidation.

First-year student Ivan Jacobo is running for Secretary. During Jacobo’s first year at SMC, he became the ICC Delegate and Vice President for the Gender Sexuality Alliance, previously serving as Treasurer.

These specific roles have taught Jacobo skills such as note-taking, collaboration and event planning. “When I previously served as Treasurer, I was in charge of submitting funding proposals,collaborating with board members to plan future events, organizing events, and maintaining detailed notes of our board meetings,” Jacobo said.

Additionally, he has to attend ICC and finance meetings to fulfill his current leadership duties. In addition to developing beneficial skills, Jacobo believes that his experience has expanded his horizons regarding collaboration and cooperation, “especially when working with a diverse group of individuals with different beliefs and ideas.”

The goal is to create a safer space for students and Jacobo wants to highlight transparency in the student government if elected. “I believe that many students may not feel comfortable enough to speak up about issues they are facing.” He aims to make campus a safe and inclusive space for all students.

In order to be more accessible to students, Jacobo will keep an open line of communication through emails, text messages and in-person interaction. It is important to him that students are able to come to him for any concerns they may have while attending SMC and allow them to feel included in decisions made by A.S.

Jacobo is currently studying economics at SMC with a plan to transfer to a four-year university.

The Director of Activities coordinates and promotes A.S.-sponsored events and chairs the A.S. Activities Committee. They also monitor events to ensure they abide by the rules of A.S. and keep records of all event-related agreements and contracts. The candidates running are: Andre’a Brown and Nahomy Rivas.

Former Adelante Club president and Crochet Critters Club founder Nahomy Rivas is running for Director of Activities in the Special Elections. Rivas' slate, “Rooted in Action,” is in conjunction with Director of Sustainability candidate Leila Kashani. If elected, Rivas hopes to highlight campus sustainability and work alongside Kashani.

In referring to the beginnings of her club, Crochet Critters, Rivas said that she was responsible for finding an advisor and board members for the club, while also preparing for Club Row and promotional work. Her roles in Adelante Club were beneficial to her preparation for running for Director of Activities since she was treasurer, vice president, and eventually president of the club. “It taught me, these are the deadlines for A.S., this is how A.S. works,” Rivas said.

She highlighted that she led numerous events with both clubs. “These responsibilities are key and instrumental in me running for A.S. Director of Activities,” Rivas said. The Activity Director role requires collaboration, which Rivas feels she “has it under the belt,” specifically due to her experience in her previous clubs.

Rivas has experience with activity proposals, which she says is a good skill to have. In addition she has connections to various clubs. To her, the role is “making sure our campus has these events that are meaningful to our students.”

She stepped down as president of Adelante Club, since she had been a club member for a long time and was unable to give her full attention to the role due to her other projects. She felt comfortable leaving the club to the current members and finished her time as president with the “Save The Monarch, Plant Milkweed” event for Earth Week.

If elected, Rivas plans to curate events that are more interactive and showcase students’ achievements and work at SMC. Her plan of outreach is approaching students on the main quad and making sure they know A.S. members are trying to connect with them.

Rivas is currently a psychology major and she says she is drawn to activities because it comes naturally to her and she has fun with it as well.

With hopes of highlighting smaller events on campus, Director of Activities candidate Andre’a Brown dives into her experiences in the Peer Navigator Program and Black Collegians.

“I wanted to shine light on smaller things that are happening around campus as well just bridging the gap between A.S. and the smaller events,” Brown says. These smaller events include ones that are hosted in the Student Equity Center and workshops in the Student Services building.

She works with the Black Collegians team and commissioners, which has taught her initiative. Additionally, she founded the Melanated Roots Choir “from the ground up.” “It took everything in me to make sure that I got the paperwork in on time; it taught me what it was like to be a true leader,” Brown said.

Her various roles in each club have taught her how to advocate for herself and interact with students and faculty members. “I have to make sure that the space I'm creating for myself is safe and comfortable, because if it's not for me, it won't be for anybody else either,” Brown said.

Brown is passionate about school spirit and learned first hand how social media is integral through her role as director of publicity for Black Collegians. She explained her dedication to have more spirit week activities and wanting to see this revived. “As cringy as it sounds, I think it's a lost art that we have,” Brown said.

She misses peer-to-peer connection and wants to encourage more of these interactions on campus: “I really aim to cultivate a nice community.” In addition to her other experiences, Brown put in a lot of hours into the Global Motion program as a dancer. She discovered discipline within herself that she didn't know was inside of her.

The Director of Publicity is in charge of publicizing A.S. through social media, advertisements, and liaising with the SMC Communication and Marketing department. In addition to promoting A.S., this director also spreads the word about student services. The candidates running are: Aylen Guiterrez and Krystal-Rose Uduma.

Director of Publicity candidate Aylen Gutierrez highlights her love for creativity and her need to help others. Gutierrez says how the Director of Publicity is often overlooked, with some seeing it as an insignificant role. Without publicity, she said, events happen, but there wouldn’t be as much interaction without publicity or engagement beforehand.

Gutierrez says she is good at social media and she loves being a creative. She enjoys creating infographics and wants to apply this to a greater cause like A.S. “Originally, it was just my way to express my creativity but also my need to help people,” Gutierrez said. The Director of Publicity position allows her to hit both these marks.

With her experience in yearbook and graphic design in high school, she obtained skills such as InDesign and Photoshop. Graphic design and yearbook intermingled and “I just started to fall in love with it,” Gutierrez said. In addition to her creativity, Gutierrez says she’s loved taking photographs since she was little.

Additionally, she was historian of multiple clubs, one being the robotics club. “I'm very much of a creative and I feel like I really show that through almost everything I do,” Gutierrez said. She has a passion for aesthetics and how they draw people in, especially in the digital age.

Her idea of outreach has changed since campaigning. “A majority of the time, it's usually easier to just go up to people and tell them and have them relay the information like a domino effect,” Gutierrez said. She finds this to be powerful and the most effective. She aims to work with the managers of the social media of all clubs and include a commissioner to enlighten students on events occurring on campus. She wants to “have this system where all the information is in one collective.”

Krystal-Rose Uduma, Director of Publicity candidate, moved to Los Angeles in 2023, originally planning to become an actor. However, she decided she desired to make an impact.

“I knew I needed to be in a space where I could develop those ideas and learn how to create visibility around them. That's what drew me to Public Relations.”

Uduma was drawn to SMC due to people she met that were able to or planning to transfer to their dream schools from the college. Once her time on campus began, she realized how student experience on campus has potential if people were more willing to get involved.

In regards to a more community-based campus, Uduma is thinking beyond events and more so how students are being informed. “One idea I'm excited about is a student-run newsletter through Associated Students or the Office of Student Life,” Uduma said. The newsletter will allow students to stay in the loop regarding events and gain insight on what other students are pursuing.

Uduma plans to work with academic departments to plan out events, workshops and guest speakers, so that students in those departments are able to network and connect with one another. In addition, she wants to set up a Discord server where clubs, specifically leaders and organizers, can communicate efficiently and effectively with each other. “It would be a simple way for people to stay in touch, coordinate ideas, and collaborate without needing to wait for meetings or approvals,” Uduma said.

Listening is a big factor in creating community, says Uduma, and students want to feel that events on campus are engaging to students. “What's missing is that sense of ownership and belonging, and I think a lot of us just feel like they're passing through, not part of something.”

Uduma hopes to build a campus where students feel more comfortable communicating. She points out that students post on the SMC subreddit “because it's one of the few places where we feel comfortable being honest about what's working and what's not.”

The job of the Director of Sustainability is to minimize the ecological footprint of A.S. and enforce SMC’s Zero Waste Policy. They critique events and ensure they abide by the SMC Sustainability Event Planning Guidelines. The candidates running are: Leila Kashani and Purevdelger Batbaatar.

What initially drew Purevdelger “Purevee” Batbaatar, Director of Sustainability candidate, to sustainability was his father and the Tuul River in Mongolia. His dad used to visit Tuul River when it was clean and animals would come and drink from the river. Now, the riverbeds are contaminated with trash.

Batbaatar and his dad would clean the river and try to clean up wherever they go. “When we go and we travel to the countryside or we have a picnic, we always try to clean the area,” he said. He was originally a computer science major and decided to switch to an environmental studies major this semester.

“I've always had a passion, or empathy, for the environment, and just trying to sustain for a long time for the future generations,” Batbaatar said. He shed some light on how while trying to be more sustainable, people can start small: shutting off the water when doing the dishes, or unplugging phone chargers from outlets once the phone is done charging to conserve energy. Batbaatar says that this creates habits which then are passed down to future generations.

Batbaatar serves as the Assistant External Vice President of SMC’s Alpha Gamma Sigma Honor Society (AGS), which hosts beach cleanup days, including last semester, this semester and a third day planned in the future. He is responsible for finding volunteers for events, as well as managing volunteers.

“We don't really have funds to create a big impact,” said Batbaatar. He wants to ensure everyone develops a habit of recycling, everything going into the right section and additionally the recycling is separated when the trash is picked up.

With his experience in event management and curation through AGS, he plans to engage with more students at SMC. “The beach cleanup day doesn't have to be only AGS students, it can be all SMC students,” Batbaatar said.

Leila Kashani, Director of Sustainability candidate, is running alongside slate partner and Director of Activities candidate Rivas. “We joined forces because we both felt like we had a lot to offer each other in a way,” Kashani said.

Kashani’s passion for sustainability was born in middle school, due to her science teacher and how important sustainability was to her. “All of the science fairs that I participated in in middle and high school had to do with sustainability.”

“Everything that I do in my life basically ties back to sustainability,” Kashani said. She brings her own containers and utensils when going out to eat and doesn’t eat bags of chips due to the use of plastic. She says that people don't fully understand the importance of sustainability and she plans to fight for more education on this matter.

“Historically, Black and brown populations, as well as other populations of people of color, have kind of been treated, more or less, their neighborhoods have been treated as a dumping ground,” Kashani said. She said that factories open up near these areas and pollute the air, which in turn leads to more cases of cancer in these communities.

Kashani specifically mentioned Flint, Michigan and their unhealthy water. “The goal is that the burden of all this toxicity in their neighborhoods will also be lessened by including environmental justice on the conversation,” she said.

Kashani highlights how people of Indigenous culture in America are not allowed to speak their own languages or practice their beliefs: “A lot of that has to do with a loss of physical habitat,” she said. She added that Indigenous people are kicked off their land and separated from their ancestral words and wildlife, losing culture and knowledge that are tied to these plants.

She explained how Indigenous people have knowledge and respect for the land. Kashani is adamant on how important it is for Indigenous people to be included in the sustainability conversation. She aims to give indigenous people a voice in sustainability, since they have been denied that voice for hundreds of years. She would also like to bring back native plants to the campus.

The Judicial Board is a governmental “check” on the A.S. Board of Directors. This board debates and rules on whether the Directors are upholding the A.S. Constitution. The Judicial Board hosts a meeting when summoned by a two-thirds vote of all Directors, or by a student petition of at least 5% of the student body.

Per the A.S. Constitution, the Judicial Board is composed of 5 Justices. However, only one seat was claimed in the general elections earlier this semester, by Saif Alnaqbi. Only one student, Nathan Norman, is running for any of the remaining seats.

In order to create a more trustworthy system at SMC, Norman has decided to run for the A.S. Judicial Board. Norman has highlighted his beliefs on how the system should be transparent and fair.

“The judicial board represents fairness and I want the students to know that their rights matter. This keeps everyone in the system fully accountable, from all sides,” Norman said. He makes it clear that fairness does not have to be difficult and it is important that honesty is at the forefront.

Additionally, in order to create a more trustworthy system, Norman is determined to hear out student concerns while remaining transparent. His time studying pre-med has allowed him to learn to remain calm under pressure while also showcasing discipline and empathy. “I'm confident that these skills will translate to my work on the judicial board and will help me make fair decisions.”

Norman is a first-year student at SMC and operates based on integrity and honesty.

Voting is now open through May 15 at 11:59 p.m. and students can access online voting through Corsair Connect. Voting instructions are available at smc.edu/community/office-of-student-life/student-government/elections.php.