Besancon, Cantu, Hawkins, Martinez to fill roles
As the 2022 Fall semester slowly rolls around, students at Texas A&M University–Kingsville can expect to see some new (and familiar) faces making up the executive board of the Campus Activities Board (CAB).
To be considered for these positions, the students applied in April.
Once the applications were submitted, the interview process was held by the CAB Adviser Julianne Gomez and the CAB President, which, at the time, was Lizzetty Lara.
After the process was completed, the decision on who would be filling the positions was announced.
Among the new board members are Ximena Cantu, who will serve as the Recruitment and Retention officer. Cantu joined CAB last year as a freshman in hopes of getting involved with campus life.
“The role of Recruitment and Retention consists of encouraging students to join the Campus Activities Board, come out to our future events and putting together social events that everyone involved in the organization will enjoy,” Cantu said. “I am really grateful that I was given the opportunity to give back to the organization by becoming an officer.”
Graduate student Erial Hawkins will serve as the new Director of Programming.
In this role, Hawkins will work closely with the Executive Director to request information, services, and products from vendors.
The Director of Programming also oversees the Director of Day Programming and the Director of Night Programming to ensure CAB is providing much detail and intention to every event they host for Javelinas.
“[As Director of Programming,] I hope to become a better leader and do my best in making sure everything is great during our events. When students attend our events, my main goal is to make sure they are enjoying themselves and creating lifelong memories,” Hawkins said.
The Executive Director position will be filled by senior Carmela Martinez.
“As the Executive Director I am responsible for managing and leading the executive board members within the organization. I also handle many other administrative duties that are delegated to me within CAB,” Martinez said. “In this role, I hope to increase the number of members in the organization and retain as many members as possible so that the next Executive Director does not have to. The transition from last year to this year was a complete makeover session. We restructured CAB in hopes of making it more attractive and just as desirable as other student organizations on campus.”
Another goal of Martinez’s is to help as many student organizations as possible. She noticed many student organizations were fading because of the pandemic, so one thing she wants to do to help is partner up for events and use CAB’s social media to help support or kickstart other student organizations’ social media to gain members and a general audience overall.
As new Director of Day Programming, Grady Besancon’s role is to manage all parts of day programming from start to finish.
“Whether that’s setting up the events or contacting performers, I manage it all. With the help of my committee we do all things day programming,” Besancon said. “In a nutshell it’s my job to make sure CAB runs smoothly during the daytime.”
With these new members behind the scenes of CAB, this upcoming semester, students can expect more fun and relaxing events.
“The Campus Activities Executive Board is listening. We are making sure to have events that the students want and are working hard to make them happen,” Hawkins said. “If you attend our event(s), always scan the QR code to give us feedback and let us know what you want to see on campus.”
For more information on CAB, students can follow their Instagram @tamukcab or contact any of the officers or board members.
Students can also contact CAB Advisor Julianne Gomez at julianne.gomez@tamuk.edu.