Daily Lobo: What makes this ASUNM election so important?
Brian Moore: The economic situation in the state means that UNM is facing a lot more budget cuts than it has in the past, and that can have a really direct impact on students. In the past, ASUNM has been all about just making sure things are OK and cruising along. This year, I think ASUNM has to be more active in fighting for what students really need from the Legislature and the administration, because there's not much money to go around.
DL: What made you want to run for ASUNM president?
BM: I've been involved with ASUNM for about three years now. Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of students be really disillusioned with student government and not really feel like it represents them or is relevant to their lives in any way. What I've tried to do in putting together the Lobos Unidos slate is get as diverse a group as possible, so that when we're elected to ASUNM, we can really stand up on the principle that we really represent students all over campus. We've got students from the ethnic centers, students from the residence halls, from Greek Row, from athletics, from the Honors Department - from just all over campus trying to get a bigger base of the student body represented. I think that will go a long way toward solving this sort of apathy toward student government that students are seeing, which is really unfortunate, because ASUNM has a lot to offer to students and really has a direct impact on the quality of life for students.
DL: What would be your first act as ASUNM president?
BM: The first thing that I'm going to do is try and arrange with the opinion editor of the Lobo to get an every-other-week column written by me or a member of my staff based on the activities of ASUNM during the past two weeks - some of the long-term projects - and hopefully that would inform
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students a little bit more about why ASUNM is important, what ASUNM is doing. In addition to that, I'm going to be working with the vice president to try to set up out-of-office office hours. Currently, ASUNM senators serve two hours every week in the ASUNM office, and that's their time to meet with student groups (and) find out what students want. Unfortunately, because the ASUNM office is kind of buried in the bottom level of the SUB, they don't really get a whole lot of interaction with students. What I would be trying to do, in conjunction with the vice president, is set up a way for the senators to be holding those office hours in locations throughout campus that are high-traffic areas, places where students congregate - the ethnic centers, the middle floor of the SUB rather than the basement, Dane Smith, Centennial Library - all those places where they can really get out into the student body.
~ Pat Lohmann
