ASMHCC Lacks Communication

MHCC is already halfway through the academic calendar year, meaning that Associated Students of Mt. Hood Community College (ASMHCC) President Javier Estrada and Vice President Emily Phoun are halfway through their one-year term.

It made sense to sit down recently with Estrada and Phoun to check in with goals they set last year, issues currently effecting students, and their aims looking forward.

First, I asked about Barney’s Broadcast, a project they eagerly described last spring in an interview with Advocate reporter Lindsay Leeman. The proposed broadcast was described as “a shared project of The Advocate and the ASMHCC. This would include giving Mt. Hood students and the community information and spreading the word about things happening on campus.” Currently, no such project exists – and The Advocate has not received any communication on moving the effort forward. Estrada said it is remains an ASMHCC team goal but noted the group has other existing means of disseminating information to the campus community.

However, these avenues of communication appear mostly subpar. The methods mentioned by the pair include the ASMHCC-overseen club and resource fairs, class raps, and all-student emails sent by Doctor Abio Ayeliya, the administrative head of Student Life.

These class raps are said to come when a member of ASMHCC would rise in a class setting and brief other students on what is happening around campus. My personal experience is when a member of ASMHCC has been in my class, those raps did not occur.

The club fairs come just once a term and rely on students being present on campus at the time. The all-student emails do seem pretty good, consistently sent bi-weekly to inform students of events and other things that affect them. 

MINUTES GO MISSING 

Going through these emails I wasn’t able to find out what ASMHCC was doing as a governing body, though: no mention on recent items voted on during meetings, no link to meeting minutes, or any other updates relating to ASMHCC’s responsibilities on campus.

This lead to my direct questions on transparency to Estrada and Phoun.

Before the interview I conducted a test: I went to the Student Union the night before to ask for the most recent copy of meeting minutes. I found that the last available copy dated all the way back to November. I had to ask someone to print out the most recent minutes – underscoring my point that it’s difficult to find out what is happening in ASMHCC meetings if you weren’t in the room where it happened.

When pressed, both leaders said they were aware of the issue, and that due to the pending launch of the new MHCC website they “weren’t allowed to make updates” to the old one. Yet even when such editing was still enabled much earlier in the school year, no meeting minutes were posted online.

Timely posting meeting minutes online would surely help bolster transparency, rather than a need to track them down during ASMHCC office hours, in person, with necessary assistance.

With the updated website launch imminent, the president and vice president agreed this should be the case. The idea of simply posting recent minutes on a bulletin board outside the group’s office so anyone could view them was also discussed.

NO ANSWER FOR CAMPUS DROUGHT

The conservation moved on to the issue of amenities on campus. We are in the middle of Winter Term, during which all the Gresham campus outdoor water fountains are closed. The campus community probably won’t see them re-open until at least the start of Spring Term, if last year is any indication. The Advocate is aware of complaints over the notable lack of access to drinking water, especially on the north side of campus. So, too, are Estrada and Phoun, they said.

Estrada suggested a potential solution where representatives of affected departments submit a funding request to ASMHCC to supply a portable water cooler. When I probed more on his strategy on clean drinking water he said, “So, it would be it would be good if, like representatives from those departments came out and asked for more, like a funding request and we have the funds to do something like that, because that’s an issue that was brought up to me before Winter Term.”

What stood out to me is that this issue was brought up months ago – and yet nothing has been done. When asked if ASMHCC could simply provide the water coolers to prevent the department representative from having to go through a complicated funding request, Estrada responded, “Well, that’s just a strategy that I, like, brainstormed. I could ask our adviser or maybe the director of Student Life to see if that’s possible.”

Perhaps a solution will come soon – although with no actual progress made, that seems unlikely before spring arrives.

These are just a few of the topics I dug for answers on in my comprehensive, 45-minute interview with the ASMHCC president and vice president. We at The Advocate urge you to listen to the full audio or read the transcript and form your own opinion. 

How do you think ASMHCC has been performing so far this year? We want to know! Shoot us an email with your thoughts and opinions.