College of Fine Arts ASUA Senator Dylan Crites is pursuing a degree in theatre arts and minors in computer science. He’s found a way to combine both disciplines to bring people together on campus.
“I’m in computer science and the way they do things is purely based on how it’s been done…they often don’t realize where they’re failing and where they aren’t doing things as well as they could be and art tends to foster that sort of thinking, of just doing things to do things”
Originally from El Paso, Texas, Crites said he found out about the Senate through a member in the Italian Club.
“I applied and I looked at it and then I started putting together pieces that senators were the ones who did club stuff,” he said. “To me at least, Senate was a way to help more people do things I wanted to do, which is just uplift students, have a good time, talk to other people”
One of his roles in the ASUA Senate is the head of the Constitution and Bylaw Review.
“We’re fixing that up, making it look nice, and readable… it is accessible,” they said.
Crites is also an appropriation senator. He knows rules and knowledge about how club appropriation works. They said each club that is registered within ASUA is entitled to $3,000.
“It isn’t direct money…we’ll basically buy stuff for the club,” Crites said. “Say your club needs a computer for some reason, or radio equipment, or studio space, or stuff like that. We’ll purchase it for them and they’ll have access to that.”
Something that Crites hopes to see in the future is events for all majors to interact in the College of Fine Arts. They said that everyone can learn things from each other.
One concern that has been on his and other senators’ minds is the $240 million deficit. Due to the deficit, ASUA has less money for club appropriations.
“We found out like that and we were at the next meeting,” they said. “It’s so much money to lose and to know that we had $200,000 for club appropriations.”
Crites said the deficit isn’t linear, everyone is left to speculate on what would be the best solution.
Another concern that Crites likes to see improve is the communication between admin and staff and students.
“I want admin and staff to just get to know students,” He said. “I think they’re often scared of us because everytime they do something wrong we jump at them, but we’re doing that because this is all we have and we’re fighting for it. We really do care.”
Crites said that his time in the Senate has helped him learn how to work with other people and deal with different systems.
“Art people tend to have this certain flavor, comp sci people tend to have a certain flavor, and now I’m interacting with more people and seeing how people tend to think, how people tend to act,” they said.
When he graduates, Crites plans to focus more on storytelling and different storytelling mediums, but the best advice they would give to a future art student would be to:
“Make a lot of noise, do stuff because you like it, do stuff for the plot, and don’t be afraid to bug people. I think a lot of us are worried about bothering people…just talk to people, push for what you think is important because someone else will also think that it’s important,” they said.