This is the first, in what will be many, of my Presidential Letters to you the students. Before I update you on what we are doing for you, the student, I think it would be great to define who we are as an organization. One cannot fully understand the importance of what we are doing if they do not completely understand who we are. We are your Associated Students, otherwise known as A.S., and are a student ran government here at CSU Monterey Bay. Every year we have elections for positions to elect the new governing officers of the Associated Students. We oversee many student ran organizations like the Inter Club Council, which could be considered self-explanatory. Also, we help fund the Otter Student Union, which runs the Black Box Cabaret. Lastly, almost all shows and events that are thrown on campus by students are funded by the Associated Students (With respect to Greek events on campus that are not funded by A.S.).

As a student here at CSU Monterey Bay you pay mandatory student fees every semester. This fee is $156.00 a semester and is used in various manners that serves you the student, making your experience in college that much more enjoyable. Of that student fee, $48.00 is paid as Associated Student Body Fees, which is given directly to our organization. We use this money every semester to help fund subsidiary organizations throughout the campus. We as A.S. use this fee to help create a campus life for you the student.

Currently, we just finished up our annual summer retreat and I cannot tell you how excited I am for the upcoming year. We have many projects and events that we are planning for our campus.

As a sneak peek I shall tell you a few details of some of the projects and events we are working on. One of the projects we are working on is a readership program on our campus. This readership will provide 150 New York Times newspapers and 50 Monterey Herald news papers a day, four days a week. This project is our way of directly increasing our awareness of the outside world and our local community on our campus, making us more well-rounded individuals, which was a decision on our part according to our school’s vision statement. We recently approved this project at our public senate meeting during our summer retreat. Hopefully, this project will be complete and implemented on our campus starting in the fall of 07. Also, we as A.S. just approved an event to be funded for a Luau dance in our dining commons during our Campus Showcase day September 5th. There should be an outdoor Hawaiian style barbeque, which will be put on by Sodexho our food service provider, and a free dance as the Campus Showcase comes to an end. We are very excited and are finalizing the finishing touches as I write this right now. These are just two of the things that we, The Dream Team as we’ve been dubbed, are working on for you the student.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me (Think about the idea of feeling “free”). My personal cell phone number is (916) 833-3903 and my e-mail is Robert_Graham@csumb.edu. I look forward to meeting all of the new freshmen and improving the relationships I have with my friends in the next year of school.

Until then, have a good Life.

Your Associated Student Body President,

Bobby James
Robert Graham