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New ASG president plans for a better future
ASG President Bradley Best looks forward to making
MHCC a better environment for a diverse group of students
The Advocate
Mt. Hood Community College’s new ASG President Bradley Best would like to meet Adm. Chester William Nimitz, a 5-star fleet admiral during World War II.
Best has always admired Nimitz’s ability to strategically coordinate and plan in order to meet his goals for the future. Best plans on doing the same as leader of the Associated Student Government.
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“He (Best) is a big picture person who has already started to create a vision for ASG that will positively impact students for years to come,” said Robert Cox, former MHCC director of student life who has known Best for about a year and a half.
Best, along with new ASG Vice President Bethany Peterman, is involved in the community, both locally and “on a state level.” Both Best and Peterman are actively part of OSA (Oregon Student Association) and OCCSA (Oregon Community College Student Association), and heavily involved in talks regarding the top 10 issues of students affecting community colleges and universities. “What we plan to do is get involved on a state level,” said Best, “We are talking to OSA and all the community colleges about the top 10 issues for colleges, and there is going to be a survey put out to every single school; community colleges and universities.”
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At one of the OSA retreats, Best and fellow OSA members conversed about what the top 10 student issues are and plan to distribute surveys regarding them to all the student body governments at OSA member schools for campus-wide distribution. Best hopes to end up with a tally of the results to determine what issues students find the most important.
“This year and next year, we’re going to be fighting for those issues that all the student bodies from all across the state are choosing to fight for,” said Best.
According to Peterman, one of the top 10 issues is trying to create legislation that will provide more affordable tuition for students. “Everything’s all about cheaper tuition or to have opportunity grants,” said Peterman, adding that the “legislation is pretty much in place except for some tweaking.”
Both Best and Peterman are passionate about students having their say and being heard at the Capitol in Salem. “We’re very, very big about the student voice . . . very, very adamant about that,” said Peterman.
Peterman said ASG has had a hard time communicating with students in the past, about the issues facing them.
This year, however, Best and Peterman have decided to incorporate training at the ASG retreat so new senators will be prepared to address any questions or concerns from the students. Starting fall term 2009, ASG senators will be more visible to the students by wearing ASG t-shirts and badges. “[This year] they’re going to be everywhere” says Peterman.
Best would also like to focus more on reaching out to the night students attending MHCC.
He believes ASG overlooks them, saying, “We want to get them involved as much as possible, at least conversing that they are welcomed during the day if they have free time and bring their families out and participate in the events that we put on” said Best.
“We hit kind of a barrier in serving them (the night students) unfortunately because they don’t pay student fees but they are still part of the population and they’re a big part of it during the day; they’re out there talking to students and they have a voice and opinion” added Peterman.
Best also has expressed his interest in looking into the GED and other programs similar to it. “The GED, the ESO, and the ENO classes are very important to me as well. I, too, attained my GED through Clackamas Community College in 2006” said Best.
Best and Peterman have also selected John King, former ASG vice president-elect, as a correspondent to represent ASG. “Anything that’s going on with ASG, anything that we’re trying to get out to the students and anything coming in, he’s going to work real closely with our director of communications,” said Peterman.
Best said the three most important attributes of a good president are accountability, communication, and accessibility.
“You got to be accountable for your actions and what you say, what you’re going to do, and communication with your staff has got to be key,” said Best. Peterman added that “Brad is very big on being accessible to the students. We know what’s up and our job is to help students. Having that open door policy is actually quite gratifying for us too.” According to Best, having a plan and being able to follow through, communicate, and being available to students will help him accomplish his goals and create a more efficient scholastic environment for the success of MHCC going forward.
“I’m just having the time of my life,” said Best.
The Advocate reserves the right to not publish comments based on their appropriateness.