Sophomore Shelly Gupta was appointed as Student Union’s vice president of finance March 20, after the position went unfilled in the general election March 7.

Gupta, who was previously Treasury Budget Committee chair, didn’t run in the initial executive elections, but was selected after applying through the school-wide application written by Speaker of Senate and junior Brian Adler and Speaker of Treasury and sophomore Alia Nahra.

According to Gupta, she didn’t run in the initial election because at the time, she was very involved in wrapping up her role as budget committee chair.

“I think running for, or even wanting to be a part of exec for SU just takes a lot of mental capacity to think through if you actually want to do that job. And I didn’t have that time until I was done with Budget Committee to actually sit down and think through it,” Gupta said.

According to junior Senator Tyler Tran, the fundamental objective for SU’s new executive board was t ransparency.

“I think the main focus for this exec was making sure that there was transparency and making sure that they had opportunity for students outside of Student Union to participate,” Tran said.

Even though the application went out to the entire student body with the intention of anyone outside of SU having the opportunity to apply for the position, Tran believes that Gupta was the best fit for the job because of her experience in Budget Committee.

“I think that with VP finance, you need such an intricate understanding of how the system works and there are a lot of rules that go on whenever we are dealing with Treasury and a lot of rationale behind those rules,” Tran said. “I think Shelly has been a person who has looked through all of those manuals and the constitution and the statutes and all the reasons why student groups get funded and the value in which they can bring in and how to determine how best to advocate for them through allocation. I think that she was the best person for the job.”

VP Admin freshman Steven Kish also believes that Gupta was the best choice for the position because of her enthusiasm for working with others.

“I think that Shelly is an absolutely fantastic choice…One of the things I’ve seen get her so excited [about] above all else is that face-to-face time and interaction with student groups,” Kish said. “Budget committee chair and treasury and VP of finance have a unique opportunity to have [that] because of the nature of their relationship with student groups. After seeing her work and working alongside her this past year, I definitely feel comfortable saying that that is one of her favorite things and that will only translate well to VP of finance.”

In her application, Gupta outlined wanting to implement better communication avenues between SU and the student groups requesting money.

“I think big picture-wise, [my goal is] fixing the way that student groups interact with SU in terms of the money that they need,” Gupta said. “I think that students get frustrated when SU can’t provide them the money that they need because they all know is this student activities fee and this is all their money. I think just being more transparent about why we make certain decisions about the funding.”

Gupta is excited to start implementing her goals for this term.

“My big goal is to make people understand SU better because I think there is definitely a gap between what the student body thinks SU is and what we actually are,” Gupta said. “I think financially that translates to our decisions and rationales so I think that hopefully that’s something I can do this term.”

Additional reporting by Emma Baker