Next semester’s Associated Students Inc. president will be Angela Arriola, the first woman president since 1996-97 ASI President Sandra Schlemmer.

Women took nine of 14 seats available on the ASI board during the April 25-26 election.Arriola has a big agenda.

In an effort to meet the concerns of individual students, she plans to increase the activity of board members who represent specific colleges.

“We want to make the office of ASI more student friendly and welcoming,” Arriola said.”This will take a restructuring of ASI, restructuring board duties, holding board members accountable and providing quality leadership training early in the board’s term. All members will be held accountable; if they aren’t, they won’t remain.”

Arriola recognizes that all of this won’t happen in one year.

“We can’t revolutionize the university in one year, but we are going to lay the foundation for this,” Arriola said.

One of Arriola’s visions is to create a Center for Entrepreneurship, by working with the College of Business to study the feasibility of such an institution.

“Many universities around the country have a Center for Entrepreneurship. This incorporates faculty, students, members of local businesses and CEO’s working together to foster entrepreneurship in students and helping them create businesses,” Arriola said.

As the current director of business on the ASI board, Arriola said she feels that this will be a very positive and influential organization.

“This will be a chance for students to put classroom knowledge into practice in a real world setting,” Arriola said.

Arriola won with 1,204 votes over Curtis Grima (1,023), Robbie Abelon (927), and Cynthia Dela Cruz (285).

Executive Vice President for 2006-07 will be Jesus Andrade.

Both candidates come from the Impact slate, with three other Impact candidates won their director races ?” Christina Romero, Rachael Morton, and Timothy Jones ?” giving Impact five of 14 available seats. All remaining seats were won by Studentcrats, giving them nine of 14 offices.

At 9:03 p.m., April 26, ASI President Angel Barajas approached a podium set up in the University Union to announce the 2006 ASI student election results to a crowd of candidates and their supporters.

Angela Arriola, out of breath from celebrating with slate members, delivered her victory speech immediately following the results.

“Everyone did a good job ?” we worked hard and got the job done,” she said. “Thanks to a great team. We had a great time working side by side. Thank you to my family, I will do my very best in office. We will act with impact!”

Team Impact then proceeded to the Library Quad for the winning president’s traditional fountain jump.

Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán (MEChA) finished first for the club ballot category with 124 votes, followed by the Queer Straight Alliance with 115 votes and the College Democrats coming in third with 90 votes. Each club, 48 total, will earn $2 per vote received.

Ballot Measures 1 and Measure 3 passed, while Measure 2 failed.

There was an 5.4 percent increase in student voting from last year, with 13.4 percent of the student body (3,577 votes) casting ballots this year.

“I think the Vote Smart campaign was effective,” said Olgalilia Ramirez, director of governmental affairs for ASI. “There was a big increase over last year, eight percent versus 13 percent. It can only move forward from here. Hopefully this percentage will only increase.”

Maxwell Puckett can be reached at [email protected]