Have you heard of ASCIT? Have you ever wondered what ASCIT stands for? Technically, it means the “Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology.” But when most students say “ASCIT,” they’re referring to the Board of Directors of ASCIT, aka the undergraduate student government at Caltech. The Board of Directors (BoD) consists of the different campus-wide positions that interface between administrative offices and undergraduates at Caltech to plan events, manage different student happenings, and overall make undergraduate life the best it can be. In addition to myself (Ankita), two other Board of Directors members and fellow Admissions Ambassadors, Gabriella Twombly and Snigdha Saha, are joining as guest bloggers for this post highlighting what student government at Caltech is and what it does.

The official BoD positions are: President (Gabi), VP of Academic Affairs (Academic and Research Committee (ARC) Chair), VP of Non-Academic Affairs (Interhouse House Committee (IHC) Chair), Social Director (Snigdha), Director of Operations (Ankita), and Treasurer. We also have an appointed Secretary who attends all meetings and helps with events. We hold weekly meetings during the academic year and biweekly meetings during the summer where we plan campus-wide events and give updates on our various tasks. Excluding the IHC Chair, who starts in second term, we were all elected in April 2023 and will turn over our responsibilities in April 2024 (nearing the end!). Despite our varying responsibilities, we do our best to support each other and make sure Caltech undergraduate life can be at least semi-enjoyable. Our instagram (@caltechascit) features photos of our events and highlights the different members! 

Twombly

Hello everyone! My name is Gabi Twombly, but most people just call me Twombly. I’m a senior in Fleming house studying Computer Science with a minor in Information and Data Science (IDS). I’m also a member of the women’s volleyball team, an Admissions Ambassador, and of course, the current ASCIT President (UG student body president). 

According to the ASCIT bylaws, “The President shall be the official representative of the Corporation, and they shall preside at its meetings. They shall be chairman of the Board of Directors and have ultimate responsibility for proper observance of all responsibilities delegated to officers of the Corporation.” In other words, there’s nothing I don’t handle. You might see me presenting at a panel, leading a tour, picking up donuts for our midnight donuts events, or helping out with alternate interhouse. As student body president, I set ASCIT’s goals, spearhead new or annual student activities, and make decisions that impact the entire student body (ASCIT organizes about 80% of undergraduate events on campus). I am the main point of contact for student leadership and representation for students on campus. Because of this, I’ve served on various committees throughout my years at Caltech including, but not limited to: the Trustee Student Experience Committee, Feynman Teaching Awards Committee, Arts Committee, Steering Committee for YWCA Mentorship, Young Legends Steering Committee, Student Rep to Faculty Board Committee, Convocations Committee, Athletics Committee, orientation panels, and the CHASE committee. I lead our weekly, public ASCIT meetings from 7-9pm on Sundays and assist my fellow BoD members where necessary. 

Some projects we’re currently working on are establishing the ASCIT fund, option advising (led by Alex), repairing the Student Activities Center (SAC) for student use (led by our secretary Ava), supporting the integration of arts into campus activities (with our IHC chair Sophie!), holiday events (with our incredible social director Snigdha Saha), requiring club documentation (that’s Ankita!), Office of Student Experience off-campus event support, and more! In our effort to improve the student experience, we work to identify areas for improvement within programming at Caltech and develop solutions to address them. At the beginning of the year, we meet with our awesome treasurer, Jonathan Booker, to allocate our budget and resources to support these campus programs and more. 

I often engage with students, faculty, alumni, and the broader Caltech community. It is my responsibility to communicate important information through channels like social media (with our social media manager Ashlyn 🙂 ), the donut email system, and the California Tech (campus newspaper). ASCIT also supports other student leaders, and holds them accountable for their work.  Overall, I oversee the BoD, ASCIT committees, ARC, IHC, The Tech and other organizations established under the ASCIT umbrella. Of course, none of our achievements would be possible without an amazing and dedicated team of student leaders, board members, administrators, faculty, and volunteers that collaborate with us to achieve our tasks!

I’ve been involved with student leadership as early as freshman year. I was Fleming’s ABC rep (ARC, Board of Control (BoC), and Conduct Review Committee (CRC) rep). My junior year I was elected to ARC Chair (the undergraduate academics and research committee chair). We tasked ourselves with supporting students in the transition from hybrid to in-person learning during the pandemic. I founded Student-Faculty Games as a way to interact with faculty outside of the classroom, and, with help from my star secretary Alex Burr (and current ARC chair), organized the 2022-23 Student Faculty Conference as a program review of academics at Caltech. We brought a number of programs back into operation, all of which students use regularly to improve their academic experience. I transitioned into the role of ASCIT President during spring term of 2023, and I’ll transition out of my position around the same time spring term of 2024.

Here’s an incomplete list of everything ASCIT runs or supports throughout the year:

• ASCIT Formal – held annually and attended by over 350 students at a cool venue. We’re currently working out the contract for this year’s event, but there’s a DJ, photographers, and dinner.

• Midnight Donuts every term – donuts given to undergraduates at the end of every term to celebrate finals with vegan and gluten-free options.
• RA/RLC Appreciation – during RA appreciation week in second term we help IHC give cards and treats to all the RAs and RLCs throughout the different residences.
• Winter holiday events – this past year we integrated Midnight Donuts and ASCIT Candy Grams, where members of the Caltech community could buy a cute holiday gift for an undergraduate student, and we hand delivered these to their doors. We also had our first Valentine’s Day / Midterm Decompression event with DIY Valentine’s Bags and Chocolate Dipped Strawberries! 
• Clubs – the Director of Operations meets with every club requesting ASCIT funds at the beginning of the year to allocate funds, and checks in with new clubs throughout the year to ensure documentation exists, they’re receiving necessary funding, and helping connect with different offices as needed. We help fund over 90+ clubs on campus in some capacity, and a large portion of our budget is reserved for club funding. 
• Volunteering – we started collaborating with the Caltech Y to create Caltech Y representatives in each of the houses, encouraging community service and outreach through the Caltech Y.
• ASCIT movie night – we rent out a movie theater and have a Caltech student-only showing of a blockbuster movie. Fall term, we had a showing of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
• Ditch Day – we give funding to stacks in each house so they can get supplies, rent spaces, and in general run Ditch Day for the members in each house.

• Multicultural fashion show – We work with the different cultural clubs on campus (and also the Caltech Y) to showcase the different cultures in the Caltech community through cultural clothing, song, and dance performances.
• Interhouses – we rent out sound, lighting, and electrical equipment to all the houses for their interhouses. We also host an alternative interhouse with Tom Mannion for every interhouse. Alternative interhouses have food, board games, and are generally a more relaxed and quieter environment for those who don’t want to go to interhouse.
• Cross-house events – two or more houses can collaborate each term and receive ASCIT funding for their event. Examples include a Lunar New Year celebration between Venerable, Avery, and Lloyd and Korean BBQ Bubbly between Avery and Page. 
• Orientation – we hold “How to Get Involved” and “Student Leadership” panels and receptions during orientation. Rotation also occurs mostly during Orientation, which is supported by ASCIT.
• Rotation – IHC completely runs and organizes all Rotation events for the incoming first-years.
• Student Faculty Lunches – ARC organizes lunches where students and profs can talk about anything.
• Student Faculty Athletic Games – we play dodgeball, soccer, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, and more against the faculty 🙂 

Snigdha

Hi everyone! I’m Snigdha and I am the current ASCIT Social Director. I’m a senior in Ricketts House studying Computer Science with a minor in Information and Data Sciences. I’m also a member of Caltech Dhamaka (Bollywood Dance team) and an Admissions Ambassador. 

As Twombly outlined above, I spend most of my time planning events for the student body. This involves brainstorming events for each term, registering them, working with faculty and administration to abide by all current guidelines, planning the events, setting up the event, managing the event, and cleaning up after. I work with a few social assistants who help manage various parts of the event to help ensure its a grand success! 

Every year, we try to host recurring events and new events. Our recurring events are ASCIT Formal, ASCIT Halloween, Midnight Donuts, and ASCIT Multicultural Fashion Show. This year, we also had our first Orientation Panel & Reception, ASCIT Valentine’s Day, and ASCIT Holiday Candy Grams! We do our best to work with student leadership across campus to support their events and add to their efforts by making Caltech a fun and enjoyable undergraduate experience. 

Prior to becoming Social Director, I acted as a Social Director Assistant in my junior year, which allowed me to learn the duties and responsibilities that come with being Social Director. I was also the Food Committee Representative for Ricketts House during my sophomore year and took over as Food Committee Chair in my junior year. In these positions, I voiced my peers’ concerns for food improvements and acted as liaison between students and Caltech Dining Services. This role helped prepare me for working with authorities and with students simultaneously, which is a significant part of my current role as Social Director! 

So, to summarize, as Social Director, I:

• Plan all social events on campus.
• Work extensively to plan ASCIT Formal, including venue tours, contract negotiations, and finding photographers and DJ for the event.
• Manage a social team who assists with events.

Ankita

To summarize my main responsibilities as DirOps, I:

• Manage clubs and club funding, including allocating club funding to clubs.
• Manage publications, which are the Big T (yearbook), little t (first-year guide), The California Tech (newspaper) and Looseleaf (literary magazine).
• Manage student spaces and equipment, including lights and sound equipment that houses borrow for interhouses. 

As Twombly said, a lot of my work goes towards managing clubs. I meet with every club requesting funding at the beginning of the year to go over their budgets, and where they can get financial support, whether from ASCIT or other funding sources on campus. If students are interested in starting a club and don’t know what to do, they can contact me, and I can help them out in terms of requirements, funding, etc. I meet with new clubs every term, and this year we also started requiring clubs to have some form of documentation of contacts and procedures so that clubs can be restarted if they ever end. There are over 150 clubs on campus, and around 70 that ASCIT supports and gives funding to. Additionally, clubs can borrow ASCIT equipment, and I manage those rentals by both clubs and houses throughout the year.

I’ve been working on managing the different student spaces throughout the year, primarily in the Student Activities Center (SAC) under the South Houses. This includes the ASCIT Social Closet, which houses all our lighting, sound, decorations, and other ASCIT goods; the club locker room, where clubs can have locker spaces to store items; and the recently established ASCIT office space. I also maintain the Screening Room, which we applied for funding to renovate, repair the projector, and get new couches, and work with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club to maintain the Science Fiction Library, SPECTRE. Although I do not directly manage them, I work with the Jam Room Managers to make sure there is enough musical instruments for students to use and ensure that everyone has access to the Jam Rooms should they choose. Ava, the current ASCIT Secretary, has taken charge of converting one of the unused rooms into a screen-printing room for student use.

Regarding publications, along with occasionally writing in The California Tech, I oversee all the publications. I meet regularly with the editors and can fill in the gaps as needed, as I did for the little t this past summer. We printed the little t for the first time since pre-COVID this year! Each frosh received a copy slid under their door, along with a copy of the ARC Frosh Guide, first time printed ever! Additionally, I’ve been working with The Big T editors to catch up on previous issues and make sure that the 2023-24 edition comes out in a timely manner. I also work with Alumni Relations to make sure we can connect with alumni and any sponsors or donors of specific programs. In terms of our external connections, I manage the ASCIT website, which includes information about our responsibilities, history, mission, and pictures of our events. 

That’s pretty much it on my responsibilities, and now I’ll highlight the rest of ASCIT. The other members of BoD include:

• VP of Academic Affairs aka the ARC Chair, Alex Burr, who oversees the Academic & Research Committee (ARC). The ARC oversees all concerns and compliments about courses, organizes student-faculty games and lunches to connect students and faculty, plans ASCIT Teaching Awards, and runs option advising every term before registration. Basically, the ARC is the academic lifeline of the undergraduate body. More information about the ARC can be found here.

• VP of Non-Academic Affairs aka the IHC Chair, Sophie Elam, who oversees the Interhouse Committee consisting of all House Presidents. We all know how crucial the house system is to Caltech, and the IHC in particular organizes all of Rotation, Interhouse parties, and advocates for student life and enjoyment. More information about the IHC can be found here.

• Treasurer Jonathan Booker is responsible for all finances, including setting our budget for the year. He also sets up all payment forms for ASCIT, works extensively with clubs to ensure funding goes correctly, and coincidentally is business manager of The California Tech, the campus newspaper. 

• The Secretary, Ava Barbano, is not elected but rather appointed by the Board of Directors. She takes meeting minutes at all ASCIT meetings, including those with different offices and administrators and works with the President on committee appointments. Ava is also working on setting up a screen-printing room for students to use in the Student Activities Center. 

Myself and the rest of BoD are super excited for the different events throughout the school year! One of the things I’m personally more excited for is ASCIT Formal, where we rent out a venue in LA, there are free headshots, and photographs taken by professional photographers. While a lot of work, student leadership has been one of the most fulfilling things I have done in my time at Caltech, and I look forward to seeing what the future BoD does next.