The umbrella group of student organizations has again held a “convention” in choosing its new set of officers.
Under the new selection process of the Students’ Organizations Coordinating Council (SOCC) introduced last year, nine officers will be chosen by 18 board members from among themselves. The board is composed of presidents or vice presidents of the different organizations, three of whom must be from University-wide organizations.
The chosen officers, however, will not be assigned specific positions until a campaign is held. Another election will be held to determine the officers’ positions, where the candidate with the highest number of votes will become president, and so on.
“Once the board members are elected, they get to vote [among themselves] the [next] SOCC executive board, which consists of the president, vice president, secretary and treasurer, through a board meeting. The rest of the positions will be opened to the officers of the different organizations of the University in a separate day [of elections],” said outgoing SOCC President Jan Michael Borja, who will be succeeded by Danisse Odiña, also an officer of the Tomasian Cable Television.
Other officers are Executive Vice President John Roque Delos Santos, president of UST-UNESCO; Corporate Secretary Jean Claudette Galvez, training director of Becarios de Santo Tomas; and Treasurer Jaypee Gozun, president of the Thomasian Junior Marketing Association.
SOCC has yet to choose offices for five other posts namely: vice presidents for corporate communications, organizational affairs, service assurance, marketing, and audit and logistics.
Previously, the SOCC board was filled up through self-nomination without specific positions, followed by a ballot done during the SOCC’s Leadership Training Seminar. The previous set of SOCC officers consisted of only nine positions: president, vice president, secretary, assistant secretary, treasurer, assistant treasurer, auditor and two public relations officers.
According to the SOCC constitution, the president has the “power to create additional positions.” New positions include vice president for marketing and business development, vice president for human resource and logistics, vice president for service assurance, vice president for audit, and vice president for corporate communications.
University-wide and college-based organizations will follow the SOCC process in electing their respective officers next academic year, Borja said.
“These changes are for our improvement as a whole. We may not be perfect, but I am sure that we have given our best to provide what the Thomasians want,” Borja said. Kimberly Joy V. Naparan and Gena Myrtle P. Terre
