On October 31, ASG hosted a public forum in the cafeteria during FLEX period. Around 55 people showed up to the forum, most of whom were ASG members, and various representatives of the different committees in ASG discussed their accomplishments so far and what they hope to achieve in the following months.

First, each of the ASG groups presented updates on their current activities. The ASG president and vice president, Nava Babaei (12) and Rishabh Chowhan (12) respectively, first individually made their announcements; then followed the finance, public relations, student-in-action, visualization, and club committees, which each discussed their key accomplishments and upcoming milestones.

Next, ASG presented their homecoming recap, going over the key activities held during homecoming week and the outcome of each of these events. They discussed what they wanted to keep as a part of spirit week and brought up ideas for what people wanted as possible improvements for next year. The gathering then split into smaller discussion groups seated at the many tables provided for the forum: attendees and ASG members were given roughly six minutes to speak.

ASG then presented their plans for upcoming activities during Winter Week and the Winter Ball that would take place from  December 16 to 20. After allowing each forum table to discuss their opinions on these plans, ASG concluded the forum.

The move to hold forums has garnered a positive response from attendees for giving a larger part of the student body a voice. 

“I think they should host more forums because obviously,” stated forum participant Aditya Bashyam (9).   it’s important for them to understand what the entire student body thinks about their events and what they can improve.”

The October forum featured more presentations from the ASG, according to development director and junior Ethan Chen. He states that past public forums used to be solely directed on feedback, but this time they decided that they wanted to inform the participants about what they’ve done first before having discussion.

Ethan hopes to be able to get more people interested in the forums, stating, “We definitely want to get more people interested and maybe publicizing incentives to come earlier. I had donuts and candy but I publicized that a bit late.”