Candidate Rohan Bodla

“I like putting in my best effort and passion to my work.”

Darsh: If you could summarize your campaign in one word, how would you describe it?

Rohan: Passionate. I am passionate and I will put my best effort to make sure that our class will succeed next year.

D: Why?

R: Because I like putting in my best effort and passion to my work, like bench building, homecoming, spirit days and our class dance. Those are the activities we plan and I want to put in my passion. And [I want to] ensure that all our class council members are putting in their passion and best effort [too].

D: So why do you think you are the best candidate for the class office to lead everyone to this?

R: I have a lot of experience. I have been involved in teaching and staff relations [in ASG]. So that means I have a lot of strong bonds with others. I know the whole process of homecoming and the different activities we plan. I think that makes me more qualified to help lead homecoming. 

D: What work did you do in ASG?

R: This year I helped plan homecoming. Homecoming week, winner week and multicultural week which are all spirit weeks we all plan. And I think that by being in the ad-hoc process, like the organization of these events, I think I can like step up and finally lead the homecoming week for our class.

D: So how specifically will you bring an experience into class council that’s different from what others can do?

R: My campaign runs on three main points: structure, communication and unity. I plan on establishing these few points; by structure I mean delegating tasks within our class. By communication I [mean] having a strong means of communication and strong responsibilities within our class council so everyone can be accountable. And unity which is like if you chose an appealing spirit day or if people are willing to put in their best effort. 

D: Class council ends up to be the opinion of very popular kids and those are considered for the spirit days so how are you going to reach out to outside of that?

R: I would not necessarily say that it’s [all] popularity but I [want to] try to find out the most passionate people who are willing to work hard. I [want to] find people who I think would be responsible. And I [want] to find various different diverse groups throughout our class and listen to everyone’s opinions instead of deciding on our own; we could reach out to the actual student body and ask them what they want.

D: So what is that one big thing you want to get done as this class officer that you feel like no one else could do?

R: Most of the class does not know what class council does right now, as we are new freshmen. We did not know what homecoming was when we came. So next year I want to establish a strong sense of communication towards our own class. I [want to] do more events, and update them about the different events we are doing so that they have a strong sense of knowing what we are actually doing.

D: How would you really go about doing that because everyone talks about posting on Facebook and all that but are there other means of outreach you will try? 

R: [By] getting our class to actually reach out to other people and tell them about these events like spirit days and others.

D: Do you have any critiques for this year’s class council that you feel you can use for next year?

R: I think this year, we never delegated tasks that much and that led to a lot of last minute changes [for things]. We did very good in bench building but other than that we could have done better in other things like our class dance. We didn’t prepare for that and for spirit days we also didn’t outreach to the people. That’s why [I think] we should reach out to [the class] and do surveys so that people are willing to participate for the spirit days.

D: We talked about homecoming a bit already, but what different ideas do you have for homecoming week and homecoming in general?

R: The main thing about homecoming is the bench building. [I think] we should recruit more artistic people; people who have talents are important for bench building. And for the class dance, we should recruit the people who are good choreographers. I also think we [should find] people who could post on social media and make good flyers to publicize our events.

D: How will you organize the class dances since you mentioned that you guys were lackluster kind of last year?

R: This year we only had two meetings for the class dance and less than half of the whole class council showed up. I [think] if we make it mandatory, we can put the responsibility on people to come and be aware. This year half the people in the class dance did not know what they were doing! If they are responsible and show up to the meetings, that would be good [for our dance].

D: But one thing I noticed via my class council experience is that every single year just ends up being two meetings at the beginning of the year so what kind of long term plans do you have for the class?

R: Long term, the class dance ends up being in the beginning like for the homecoming. Other than that, I want to maintain our presence throughout the year like how ASG this year is planning to do Versus week (that’s like homecoming week except for second semester). We are planning to establish that within class council and I plan on making sure that they are aware of the events during Versus week. 

D: How would you encourage this sort of school spirit in your class that you would need for your homecoming?

R: Publicizing is the main thing so that the people know what we are doing. We also need appealing flyers and have to reach out to them asking what they want rather than us choosing events and things for them.

D: How will you recruit your students for class council?

R: I will base it on a lot of criterias such as what experience they have, if they are passionate, and if they are willing to put in their best effort.

D: How are you going to know if someone is passionate about the class council or if they just want it for college apps?

R: In their interview I will ask them why they want to be in class council and what makes you unique. If we ask them those questions we can tell if they actually want to put in their best effort. 

D: How will you bring in all of these people’s views together and form a coherent structure? 

R: Along with like one or two officers, we’ll make plans. During homecoming week, we’ll make a plan about what we’re exactly going to do for bench building, what we’re going to do for [our] class dance, and what we are going to do for the spirit days. Establishing a solid plan ahead of time and making a schedule of all the bench building dates: that’s really important.

D: How would you delegate tasks?

R: This year we had committees but we really didn’t use them; we had fundraising committees, publicity committees and all this other stuff but it mainly ends up on the class council as a whole to do things. This year we did not delegate tasks to our people in our class council well. So this year we plan on picking people who are the most qualified, people who are actually going to do work on committees.

D: Ok so then, class events! After homecoming what exactly is your class is going to do and how you are going to get the whole class to agree to be engaged?

R: There is always the fundraiser we hold during the club rush and things like that to get more money for our class. This year, there is also Versus week during the second semester. Those are the two main most important events this year and if you are a junior class officer then you will also be responsible for organizing the class prom and all those other things.

D: Finally, as a freshman, what differences do you see between how ASB was run last year at Horner and ASG is run here at Irvington?

R: As a freshmen, you really are new to everything, you really do not know what homecoming is but this year we are trying to give everyone an idea of what class council does and the work we do. Showing them that the main goal that we have the main vision, we’ll have people that are more aware of the things we do.