After serving a one-month suspension for campaign violations, Santa Rosa Junior College Student Government President Jordan Panana Carbajal is back at work with ambitions of leaving a lasting legacy.
In a recent interview with Carbajal, the president wasted no time talking about his past suspension.
“I’d like to talk about right now and talk about the future, especially with what’s going on with the government around us,” he said.
Carbajal graduates from SRJC in May and will transfer to a four-year university in fall. Carbajal’s focus for the remainder of his time here is predominantly making sure students are aware of resources SRJC provides to the homeless, food insecure and undocumented.
His current aim is making sure a resolution for Bill AB 1995 gets passed by the SRJC Board of Trustees. The bill allows access for homeless SRJC students to use shower facilities on campus. Carbajal is pushing to provide more than just facilities.
“800 students here at the JC are homeless and I want to make sure we are making an initiative to pass AB 1995 but also provide the utilities and shower equipment,” he said. The Feb. 14 Board of Trustees meeting is when board members will discuss the logistics of the measure and how to promote it.
Homelessness and food insecurity are pressing issues SRJC students struggle with. Until these basic needs are met, students will continue to struggle with academic success. Carbajal is looking at how Napa Community College distributes food and is hoping SRJC will follow their model to improve our own food bank.
SRJC President Dr. Frank Chong made the decision to only suspend Carbajal stating that since this was a student position that Carbajal should be given the chance to learn from his mistakes. Contributing to Dr. Chong’s decision to retain Carbajal was the fact that Carbajal’s slate was predominantly Latino.
“This was the first time Latinos as a whole have been involved with student government. It seemed logical to me that they are new to student government and they’re going to make mistakes, and the [slate] did,” Chong said. “My only stipulation was come clean, own it and let’s move on.”
Joshua Pinaula • Feb 8, 2017 at 1:11 pm
I think there may be a mistake? I don’t believe that the Oak Leaf or President Dr. Frank Chong are trying to imply that Latinx students are predisposed to bullying, bribery, and cheating the Student Elections as Jordan’s slate did. But also, that seems like a strange metric for making a decision, seeing as the opposing slate was half Latinx, and they didn’t bully, bribe, or cheat the elections.