Pacific Islander Student Commission Director

2019-2020 PISC Director: 

Talofa Theana, 

Congratulations, girl!! Welcome to the line and legacy of PISC :’) I’m so excited to be passing the torch to someone so near and dear not only to me, but to the community. You’re an extremely caring person, and your love radiates in all you do – that’s what sets you apart for this position. I’m beyond confident that with your leadership, our Pasifika family on campus will be able to strive in all the ways we are capable. You’ve accomplished so much in your time here with our students, and you’re a key member in all of the groundbreaking milestones that we’ve seen. Believe me when I tell you that you got this, girl and I’m so excited to see you shine! 

That being said, continue to hire passionate and capable individuals to lead our constituents. As you already know, Pacific Islander students make up a very small percentage of the UW student body, and being a group of people from the middle of the ocean lol, there’s a lot about the university that isn’t created to make us feel like it’s our place. That’s why spaces and people from PISC, the ECC, and even OMAD exist – to create those spaces. That being said, don’t ever be afraid to call people in authority out on their BS when you see it fit. Trust your gut, trust your voice. In my first quarter, I began to step into the realization that I really was representing and speaking for Pacific Islander UW students — it’s a little daunting at first, but in all honesty I have no doubt at all that you’ll go above and beyond in advocating for us well. You’re wildly headstrong in absolutely everything you do, and that’ll work to your advantage so much more than you realize. In Kat’s words, “Remember to always make your time equitable to the communities around you, trust your gut in these situations, and look to your ancestors, to your predecessors, and  to your communities for answers and solutions.”

Some advice:

-Try to keep your PISC work within the 19 hours a week that you get paid for this job. You don’t get paid enough to exhaust yourself, and the community won’t think you’re slacking as long as you try to keep everyone in the loop about what you’re doing as much as possible and is reasonable. Reflection and self awareness is integral to both the job and your mental health. I know this can sometimes be hard, but make an active effort to do it and just remember that if you believe that you put your best effort into something, that’s what counts most.
-You are very headstrong and that is such a strong skill to have in this position. Do not be afraid to speak up when you feel like you need to advocate for our community even when in a room of people who seem to second guess the PI population. Your speaking skills play in your favor and yours is such a powerful voice. Think about challenging situations with a level head, and focus on understanding the perspectives people are coming from and how you can listen while also standing your ground for the needs of our community.

Some things that still need to get done that I hope you are able to find some capacity for next year is 1. The creation of a PISC alumni directory, 2. Following closely the progress on the Greek initiative that began last year, 3. The Decolonize series. When it comes to the directory, it’s a good idea to have an intern continue the work as a project if they are especially interested in professional development. Eya is a good point of contact should you have questions. There are several emails Kat has written on the Greek appropriation that you can find in the inbox, but main thing is to hold Board accountable for continuing to work with Greek life to improve Greek diversity practices and also to create accountability measures for cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation in the Greek community heavily impacts our community as PI appropriation is so blurred for parties in the spring. I am happy to answer questions about the initiative if anyone in Board comes asking you about how to pick up; Gillian and/or Tianna are also great contacts for this, for they were my primary interns working on the bill this past year. The Decolonize series is something, as you know, that sprang forth at the very end of the school year, so it’s extremely underdeveloped. After we cancelled it, I sort of stopped preparing for it altogether (burnout got ya girl). Don’t feel pressured to pick it back up, but if you do decide to, I’d be happy to sit down with you and we can recreate plans to bring it back. 

Refer to this guide, it will have everything you need to succeed this quarter. I will be around next school year so feel free to talk out any stressors, any uncertainties, or if you want some context about how it’s been done in the past. Or even just to hang out. We are a community built off of traditions, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make progress for the better. I wholeheartedly trust that you are a leader capable of bridging the perceived divide between tradition and progress towards equity in our community. remember that this guide is not binding, merely suggestions. This commission is yours to run this year, and do not let anyone bind you down and tell you you aren’t capable of it. Trust your gut. 

Lots of love,

Tulili

• MyUW/email: asuwpisc@uw.edu; Password: HafaAdai670 (YES you can change this, consult with SAO adviser to do so. I HIGHLY recommend that you do. It hasn’t been changed in like…. 2-3 years lol). 
• 2017 & 2018 Budget Number: 16-9420
• Resource Center passcode: asuwpisc-pisc
• Voicemail Security Code: 169729
• HUB Events login: asuwpisc@uw.edu, password: pisc14* (I believe it changes every year, and if it does, you’ll get your new credentials at ASUW orientation; I did.)
• Twitter Username: asuwpisc; Password: PasifikHuskies1617
• Computer Login: HafaAdai670
• Instagram Login: asuwpisc  pswd: pisc1617*
• Facebook – you will be granted access.
• PI Studies email: uwpistudies@gmail.com; Password: oceania00 (This is kind of obsolete- but good records to have if you have any initiatives related to PI Studies)
• Website access : go to pisc.asuw.org/wp-admin/ and enter your UW login listed above
• Slack Login: asuwpisc@uw.edu, psswd:PasifikPride1617*

****IF ANY OF THESE DONT WORK LMK OR JUST CLICK “FORGOT PW” AND CHANGE IT****

*-changes every year

**NOTE**: API Cares has yet to solidify a consistent day to meet.

You should also work with Jon, SAO Advisor, to schedule a time to meet weekly.

• Sunday: enter your office hours for the following week by 10PM – 19 total, but you can use as many hours as you want towards meetings (for example, 2 hours go into a Senate meeting or 2 hours at SAB); outside of these meetings you can hold 15% of your remaining hours outside the actual office. Just put “Remote” on Office Hours. Don’t be afraid to utilize this option either. I used it a whole lot this past year (sometimes you just need to work outside the office), just be sure to keep your Personnel Director in the loop.
• Monday: Student Advisory Board (SAB) Meetings, 4-5:00pm typically but time could change next year. You may assign a liaison if you so wish. PIPE (unfortunately usually falls on the same time as SAB) is 4-6PM
• Tuesday: Student Senate, 5-7pm – you have a protected seat in the Senate, but just know that missing 3 or more meetings unexcused will result in an attendance violation. You are also allowed 2 proxies a quarter, so pick and choose your meetings wisely! I would suggest that if you have never officially done senate, to do it for the first quarter, then send an intern so that they may get some experience. (NOTE: When you sign up as a senator here, you should be signing up with your personal myUW, not PISC’s so that if you make the switch to an intern you don’t lock PISC’s account out indefinitely.). You may assign a liaison if you so wish. If senate protected seat registration seems messy on Senate’s side, pop into the Senate office to get things straightened out with them.
• Wednesday: Micronesian Islands Club (MIC) meetings, 5-7pm, General meetings biweekly, Officer meeting biweekly. If you need to sit in on an officer meeting, it’s respectful to ask first, but it’s likely they will be chill with it.
• Thursday: Filipino American Student Association (FASA) OR Polynesian Student Alliance (PSA) meetings, 5-7, biweekly, General meetings biweekly, Officer meeting biweekly for PSA, not sure about FASA (try to attend one of each). If you need to sit in on an officer meeting, it’s respectful to ask first, but it’s likely they will be chill with it.
• Friday: None that I know of.
• Saturday: Hui,10am-12pm, once a month (usually first Saturday). not sure about officer meetings.
• Other Meetings:
  • Joint Commissions Committee (JCC) – time will be determined at the beginning of the year; the Director of Diversity Efforts will reach out to you and ask for your availability. Two years in a row it’s been Monday nights around 5:45PM.
  • NAPA (National Alliance for Pacific Americans) – Uncle Stan usually reaches out to Taylor, Toka, or maybe next year even you, to determine a monthly or quarterly meeting time. NAPA is not always gonna be at UW but as much as possible try to make each one or at least send a rep. RSO officers usually go, so maybe you can carpool.
  • APIC (Asian Pacific Islander Coalition) – This meeting is usually monthly at ACRS (you will get emails from them informing you of times and dates). You and Erica should try to go to these to get connected with the community, leaders like Lu’a Pritchard and the director of ACRS usually attend these meetings and they have a big voice in the community and with the UW. I would recommend sending a proxy (likely legislative interns) to these meetings for both the benefit of PISC and also for the networking growth for those interns.
  • NAAB (Native American Advisory Board) – This meeting is tentative on the Board itself and Tribal Liaison Iisaaksiichaa (Ross) Braine. I personally did not attend any of these meetings (I didn’t know when they were, but I recommend talking to the AISC Director and ask when the first meeting is in order to gauge what their concerns around PI issues are. This board advises OMA&D on issues surrounding the Native community, they are a very good ally to have. They are extremely concerned we do not have a PI studies yet, and that our numbers are so low.
• Other things to do throughout the week: update Facebook, Twitter, and website (or assign an intern to manage this- this can be a full time intern job and excellent for any member of our community trying to get into marketing/design career prospects or really enjoys it); post in PISC Facebook group to update them on what’s going on in Senate, SAB, and ASUW in general.

Each year directors have different quarterly goals. You can do anywhere between 2 – many programs a quarter, but keep in mind you should save approximately $3000 for graduation expenses from your total budget (leave some cushion money just in case, there have been years directors overspend and end up putting the next director in a tight spot). I personally didn’t keep up well enough with establishing set goals per quarter and I regret it a lot. I found in the end though that it helps a lot to brainstorm with your intern team should you decide to take one on.

The advice you’ll read below is a mix between mine and Kat’s – she had a lot of important and helpful nudges (few of which I didn’t do myself, but you may want to!).

• Try to at least 1 major programming event (ex. Pasifik Voices and Strengthening Pacific Alliances Meeting (SPAM)) a quarter.
• Try to do at least one professional development/ leadership workshop thing like the leadership retreat we did this past year (you can continue that as well should you choose to!).
• Send weekly/biweekly newsletter emails (I tried to send one once a week to keep the community updated on PISC events & issues bc there’s so much in progress. People actually read this! This is a little annoying to figure out so I recommend having the Outreach intern do this again. Tise used MailChimp last year. I will show you in person how to do this, remind me if I don’t.
• Use Google Cal as the PISC calendar with all of PISC’s events for that month, and make sure that all of your constituents’ events are on it – as well as community events! A fast way to organize all this too is make FB events for all the programs you put on, and FB will arrange it in order by dates for you so people can see everything coming up faster. The newsletter is helpful bc you don’t necessarily have to arrange everything coming up, it’s organized in an easy-to-read way.
  • WordPress and the wonders of designing your page: Britney did a fantastic job with the site this year. If you want anything changed, let Britney know over the summer so she can help you freshen up the site for your term. It’s good to know how to do this, but also I just recommend getting a webmaster with a strong work ethic who is able to keep themselves accountable to update it weekly.
• Quarterly meetings with your PISC representative board/commissioners, and quarterly meetings with Presidents. These are both at the start of the quarter Each RSO should assign an officer to also serve as PISC Rep (usually VP, but it dont really matter). Purpose of these meetings is to see what RSO’s need and expect from you and helps you choose what goals for the quarter should be. Usually I prepare a draft of goals, then in Presidents meetings I have the Presidents review and edit the goals so that they are truly in the spirit of what our constituents want. Rep meetings are usually to get programming support for one another and let RSO reps interact and find room or collaboration with each other.
  • If you think this is helpful (I think it was) bi-weekly one-on-ones with each RSO rep is a good way to maintain working/admin/personal connections with individual RSOs and to gauge where they’re at in different points of the quarter. I thought it was helpful in achieving this goal, but sticking to regular meeting times really reduces the “flexible” nature of Office Hours since I’d have to schedule remaining hours around Rep meetings. Reps also sometimes don’t show up. I highly recommend this method though, it can also help you work on your organizing/scheduling skills. If this ain’t your jam, that’s ok, but please think of another way to be in touch with reps.
• Social media campaigns are fun and I highly recommend it. It may seem a little extra, but PIs are extra so it’s OK. Pro is that it gives your Outreach intern more experience out of the position too. This year, we did a “PISC Spotlight” campaign in Win and Sp that featured a member from our community or member of the broader PI community weekly on Facebook and in the PISC-listerv emails). The theme for spotlight this year was to elevate stories in our community that otherwise don’t have a platform to acknowledge all the passion and hard work our leaders put in.
• Keep social media platforms updated – Facebook page & group, instagram. Always. Social media intern is a very important position, and you must find a very dedicated one if you choose to have someone else manage social media. 
• Be present & active in all the meetings that you attend – and make sure the conversations & information you get out of those meetings don’t just stay with you, but that they are communicated to your constituents. Kat used the PISC Facebook group to do this and did Director’s Reports for a while. Director’s reports were VERY well received by RSO leaders (they were sent to reps and president), but caviat is that they take a while to write. I recommend that after each event/meeting you attend, you just update your report so that you don’t have to cram them all. OR you can make rough drafts and have a Lead Intern fill in the gaps (which means you should also hire a very committed lead intern, really interested in getting into advocacy and organizing). Fridays would be good days for Director’s reports.)

At the beginning of the year, the first thing I did once I started my position was reach out to all of the PISC organization officers (especially Presidents) and went into officer and Rep meetings to develop a relationship with them & to hear how PISC can support them, where we can collaborate, develop goals, etc. I think you should definitely try to meet with all the presidents by week 2 all together and discuss the prior in more detail. Utilize Facebook group message with the PISC organization Presidents & Vice Presidents/commissioners to make communication easier. There is a spreadsheet in your Director folder in Google Drive with the names of ALL RSO Presidents. At the first presidents meeting, have them come in with the name of their PISC Rep ready. In week 3, meet with the reps.

Tino recommended setting up meetings with PISC’s key people and advisors, such as as Toka Valu, Holly Barker, NAPA (Uncle Stan), Kuya Pat Pineda (past PISC Director and involved FASA alumnus), Auntie Lolie Farinas, Professor Rick Bonus, Mikey Tuncap, and Glendal Tautia. I didn’t do this, but I imagine it may be helpful.

Lastly, our community allies. PISC has an excellent relationship with the Native American community especially, so actively be allies with them in the spirit of indigenous solidarity. This can take the form of another SPAM/SNAC or just coming through to volunteer for big events like Pow Wow.

The Greek initiative is a loose end, but remember that your responsibility primarily is to advocate for PIs impacted by Greek appropriation. In Fall and early Winter, the best thing you can do is ensure that the initiative is on Board and JCC’s internal agenda and keep them in check about the work that should be continued with this.

The Decolonize series is also a loose end. Like I mentioned earlier, don’t feel too pressured to put it on your plate, but I do encourage you to! The whole vision of the series is about giving our constituents a chance to educate themselves about larger issues that actively affect us and the world around us, on our terms, telling those stories the way we want, how we want (if that makes sense). There’s a lot we learn in classrooms, but the personal connections we make can usually be found in the communities we’re learning with – for many of our students, those communities are our clubs. Again, feel free to reach out to me if you ever wanna talk more about it! I’d be happy to.

• ASUW (obviously)
• JCC (Joint Commissions Committee)
• SAB (Student Advisory Board)
• ECC (Ethnic Cultural Center)
• OMA&D (Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity)
• NAPA (National Alliance for Pacific Americans); Uncle Stan is the point of contact
• APIC (Asian Pacific Islander Coalition with Asian Counseling and Referral Services)
• CAPAA (Commission on Asian and Pacific American Affairs, your contact will be Michael Itti, or whoever their next program director will be)
• UPRISE- idk who the coordinator is, like Nestor Enguerra is one of them, but keep in contact with Natalie about when UPRISE is to get info on how to volunteer; PISC has historically always volunteered in order to promote higher ed accessibility amongst youth.

Here is a link to the timeline of events from my term for reference. It is flexible though, so feel free to start new traditions, scrap old ons (with consent from the community of course), and even reduce the number of programs if you feel that the focus should be on other parts of the job.  Programming is a big part of the commission, but it is not everything. It is integral though because it provides safe spaces for PIs to express themselves and share their culture. I encourage you to keep Pacific Voices, Autumn SPAM, Holiday SPAM, and maybe even expand on PIFA from Kat’s year, or Decolonize. For PIFA, main thing is to expand representation. We had a LOT of Chamorro artists at PIFA last year, but we really should make efforts to add numbers of artists to represent the Poly and Filipino community as well.  Uncle Noel is a key community member when it comes to PIFA or anything artsy. 

Programming is not only limited to active programs, but passive ones too- like spotlight, Warrior, etc. It would be nice to get programming going along specific social issues in our community, like diaspora, queerness, climate change, activism, etc – but keep in mind that these educational program don’t really get a lot of attendance through typical advertising. You really need to be able to help people understand the importance of engaging in these dialogues, because like Toka said, if you’re gonna do something, it has to be something that the community wants.

Programming also includes supporting our RSO’s programs. If there is a major RSO program going on in a given week, it’s recommended that PISC doesn’t book one in close proximity out of respect for fostering the leadership and efforts in our community.

Finally, Pasifik Grad is the priority event of the year and costs a lot of money, and will cost even more next year. Toka mentioned that OMAD may not give as much money as they have historically due to a potential redistribution of funds, so be ready to access funding resources like NAPA, co-sponsorships with other commissions (historically, WAC), to help fund food and stoles, which ECC/OMAD usually funds. Pasifik Grad committee meetings should start by the second week of Spring quarter, and the committee is usually comprised of Bonus, Auntie Lolie, Taylor, Toka, and your lead+programming interns. Add committee members as fit or as per student interests. Toka won’t be around anymore after this past year, so work to find another representative from the ECC.

Here is a quick admin checklist to think about when planning events:

-Date/Time: Make sure it doesn’t clash with other RSO events. Depending on the size of the event, book as much in advance as possible. Major events should be booked by week 1 or 2, and smaller events should ideally be booked a month or 1.5 months in advance. It’s helpful to make a timeline at the beginning of the quarter.
-Location: Think about price and size of the event. Common spaces are ECC and Intellectual House. HUB is an option too, but they are ridiculously booked and also ridiculously expensive for bigger events. You are eligible for a free HUB room each week for max 2 hours if you need a quick space.
-Need food? 1. Email Justin Camputaro (HUB Asst Director) to request funding by saying the date/time/place of the event, providing description of event, and giving him a price requested along with what food you’ll be buying. 2. Submit a Temporary Food Permit at least 3 weeks in advance of an event if you plan on cooking, 2 weeks if you really forgot. Make sure you book a kitchen space along with the event reservation too. 3. Get a food handler’s permit and encourage your interns too
-Got off campus attendees? Submit a UUF request.
-Make sure you submit all documents to all venue places, etc and respond to follow up emails
-Maintain your BUDGET!!! I will teach you this in person
–Advertising: You can do posters/flyers in two ways: 1. Submitting a design request with the Office of Communications two weeks before you want to start advertising. You get to give it back to them for edits twice. 2. Have an intern design it then show it to OCOMM for approval before printing. This is faster, but dependent on the art skills of your intern. All primary graphic advertisement, including FB banners, need to be approved by OCOMM before posting/publishing or they will get upset. Remember to include the disability statement on the bottom of all printed posters.

You have the actual PISC creation documents in the office, but here’s a more informal document from Mikey Tuncap with PISC’s history. You should probably scan our charter documents and upload them for people to see. I printed one out and it’s tacked on our bulletin board inside the office.

One thing I with Tino is the importance of getting back in touch with our fore founders and past directors to get advice and to create a documentary on the History of the Pacific Islander community at the UW. Keeping records is powerful, it is what preserves our history and reflects the growth of our community. If you would like, I would try to get some funding to do this so that we can use it as an advocacy tool for our students in the coming years. If this is not something you would like to do this year, the year after you marks 20 years of PISC. I recommend getting an archival intern to start preliminary works on this project to help make this task easier for the next Director after you.

PISC is in a unique position of having in our constituency 3/6 of the UW Legacy Groups. Here is an important document regarding legacy groups at the UW. This defines legacy groups and provides a history of how they started. “Legacy group” has been thrown around as a buzzword lately by those in leadership, and it’s important that in each day you come into the office and you hear people talking about legacy groups, that you keep them accountable to preserve the meaning and purpose of these groups by ensuring that leaders practice what they preach and give due respect to our communities. This includes, but is not limited to, if issues regarding their protected seats in Senate comes up (a movement initiated by PISC Team during Daniele’s term), if marginalizations around any legacy group occurs, PISC stands in solidarity as an accomplice, etc)

This does not mean they get more favorability in our commission. All our RSO’s should be treated equitably by our commission, with the understanding that each RSO is also different in organization and dynamic and is at different levels with their relationships with PISC.

For example, we give out co-sponsorships to our RSOs each year. This year, the amount that I gave out were as follows:

1. PSA – $600
2. MIC – $500
3. FASA – $0 (no request submitted) – though Kat gave them $400
4. Hui – $400
5. PNI – $0 (no request submitted), ~$200 Kat’s year
6. FAHC – $300
7. CTP – $0 (no request submitted)
8. API Cares – $0 (no request submitted)

These were all based on factors like financial state of RSO, capacity of RSO to access other funding sources, size of RSO/community, and need. For example, Poly Day this year was in an extremely tight position and PSA needed all the help they could get. PSA does not have as much members to really sustain the contemporary costs of hosting Poly Day, and that is not their fault- it’s a small community. Therefore, they received $600 because Poly Day is an iconic event not only for PSA, but for the entire PISC constuituency due to the legacy and purpose of Poly Day. MIC Night is a HUGE legacy event ran by a small legacy RSO. MIC exhausted all their funding resources and barely scraped by to secure the money. There is not a lot of resources MIC can tap into either. FASA normally gets slightly less because they have a lot of community networks and alumni that help fiscally. They put on a ton of events and have the capacity to do that. FASA’s events are big though, and need support and are amongst the most attended, so we still want to budget money for them. They didn’t request any this year, but it’s good to keep some on hand just in case. Similar case for Hui who historically has 2x the number of donors than MIC or PSA.  API Cares was also allocated $150 as a developing club. Use your best judgment for funding, but I do recommend cutting the amount PISC gives out to RSOs by a small percentage each, as we were really scraping to get enough funds for Pasifik Grad by Spring in Kat’s year.

(When it comes to funding from this past year, I definitely spent way over our budget, but was in the clear because ASUW Finance and Budgeting told me that was I was well within my limits – their records are about 6 months or so behind – but it’s okay. The goal with funding is to spend as much of your budget as possible. I recommend checking in with F+B in the first couple weeks to review PISC’s spending this past year to see if it’s updated. If you check my budget sheet, you’ll see that I went over – but it was fine because according to F+B, I was cool. Talk to them about this! Otherwise they’ll think we don’t need as much money as we’re getting when in reality, we’re already spending more than they’re giving us.)

PISC has a pretty good relation with all our RSOs, but there are some groups that may not feel as in the loop with the rest of PISC as is ideal. Namely, FASA and Hui both have their own set of large numbers in members with an individual vibe in each, so it is a little harder to get such a large group to all “feel”that sense of belonging in PISC, but there is room for improvement. You can do this by talking to members 1-1 and building relationships, attending club meetings, volunteering, etc.

Between each other, good relationships between RSOs start with good relationships between RSO leaderships. it’s no secret that MIC and PSA operate like sister clubs given that both are small RSOs. This is kinda the “ideal” we have for all our clubs. FASA comes through to many of our other RSOs events, but other RSO members may feel intimidated going into larger groups’ spaces. Work with leadership to address that issue. Hui and PSA have had historical tensions, as you are familiar with. It has gotten better this year with the two groups practicing Tahitian together, but there is still room for improvement. The concern is with the deep colonial history of Hawaii and the contemporary expression of culture from Hawaii clubs in general.  Please keep that on your radar. As for our smaller RSOs, check in on them every now and then to see how they feel integrating with the cultural RSOs. I truly think that good relationships were fostered at our first leadership retreat, so put your best energy in building those foundations for our RSOs and I promise you will have a great year in this realm if retreat goes successfully. 

There are PI students outside our RSOs that need PISC’s attention as well. Get in touch with Ink Aleaga, who works at Athletics, to talk about ways to engage PI athletes with the community or with the Burke. For students that seem shy, some patience and encouragement goes long ways. Some tips: do not pester them into getting more involved, but instead just keep encouraging them until they feel comfortable. Charm them with your friendliness and genuine gesture of family towards them, Keep the door open by following up with them by personally encouraging them to come to events they might like.

To make things easier for you, ideally have interns interviewed and hired by Week 4 or 5. This means submitting your internship app to the Office of Volunteer Opportunities for approval by the second day of school. You can find copies of last year’s apps in my folders to serve as drafts of your internship applications that you can edit as you wish. Submit these to OVO for approval on the first day of school to get interns ASAP. PISC operates at its best in a team setting. All the positions we had this year are listed on the application. Volunteering for PISC has opened doors for a lot of our interns this year, and the gift of giving interns things to do that will benefit them in the long run is truly the best you can give. Do feel free to reconfigure this however you please! The idea of an intern team was Kat’s, and being part of it, I liked it for my year too.

Intern Positions: (3-7 hour a week commitment). All interns are expected to assist programming efforts.

Lead Intern: proxies for important meetings, organizes files, secretarial work, backup and support for tasks of other interns

Programming Intern: helps with program development and on the day execution of events. Programming intern needs to be very committed bc they should be the one you count on to help do the physical work of running and coordinating an event.

Social Media Intern: FB, Instagram, Making Event pages, responding to messages received on social media, ideally digitally artsy as they are likely to take the lead on designing Pasifik Warrior

Outreach Intern: Weekly newsletter, reaches out to faculty contacts (Holly, Connie, Bonus, ECC, AES Dept, AIS Dept) with an email to forward their students/communities to promote events, Manages spotlight, works on Warrior overall look and design

Leads (1-2 hour time commitments).

Programming Lead; assists programming intern, smaller time commitment

Legislative Lead: Drafts letters of advocacy, attend legislative workshops/conferences to advocate for PI students, assists in coming up with suggestions in addressing administrative/community issues, drafts action plans for next steps when bias incidents against our community occurs

Senate Lead: attends Senate and votes with the best interests of PIs in mind

Outreach Lead: helps get in contact with outside community affiliates, helps with programming. This year Pett focused on PIFA

Webmaster: maintains the website. We need a good one next year

PD/AE: might do leadership workshops, team development, high school outreach (This is a great point to work on for next year too if you’re interested in taking up more outreach work), and also work on alumni directory

Community Climate (Fa’aumu): Brainstorms potential dialogues to bring forth at retreat, meetings, either with constituents, reps, or interns.

I hired everyone that applied my year, hence the extra positions. I did this not as a logistical thing, but because we received lots of apps from people who were not engaged with the PI community until PISC. PISC is where they turned to to get involved and I wanted them to grow in their skills in a healthy community, and nearly all of them did and came out feeling more connected with the community than ever before. I don’t necessarily recommend the same route, but just be sure you hire quality, dedicated interns and ignite that passion for service in them! You can scrap positions as you see fit. 8 is a hard number of interns to manage, so I had to split intern meetings into “committee meetings” of social media, legislative, then 1-1s.

I did collabs with AISC, ASC, QSC, and WAC but it would be nice to see collabs with BSC and La Raza too as those commissions also house other legacy groups. SARVA, SDC, and SHC I didn’t have much contact with as there isn’t much talk about the intersections of those initiatives within our communities, but if you feel a good time to do a collab with them, it would be nice to do so. Remember to keep constituents in mind when doing collabs, and don’t just do them to do them.