About 15 students sat today in the University Union’s Hinde Auditorium with Vision slate T-shirts and signs for candidates in the Associated Students Inc. election debates.

Ramon Yepez is running for director of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Felix Barba is running for director of Arts and Letters. The third candidate for the director of Health and Human Services, Kevin Chun, did not show up for unknown reasons. All three candidates are running unopposed.

Yepez advocated for improvements to be made in advising. He also promoted the importance of advertising to increase student interest in both ASI elections, but also his college.

“We also need more events on the (Library) Quad and the university,” he said.

Both candidates said more emphasis should be made towards advising to better keep retention rates of students up.

Barba also said that improvements should be made to advising since “it provides many opportunities” to students.

“ASI should start advertising more,” Barba said. “If the leadership is enthusiastic about programs, then the enthusiasm will spread (to the students).”

Tomorrow’s ASI election debates will be at noon in the Union’s Summit Room. Chad Gidel will be running for the director of Business, Mohammad Farhad will be running for director of Engineering and Computer Science and Michael Nguyen will be running for director of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Sciences. All three candidates are running unopposed.

All of the ASI election debates are televised on the ASI website.

Jamie Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]