New student trustee fights for students

 

By Sara Bloomberg and Sean Houlihan

The Guardsman

 

Don’t be fooled by his easy going demeanor.

 

William Walker means business and as City College’s newly elected Student Trustee, he represents more than 90,000 students at nine main campuses and many other instructional sites around the city.

 

A San Francisco native, Walker attended City College from 1997 to 2003. He then left for a job in L.A. where he worked as an executive assistant for four years until an injury prevented him from working.

 

So he returned to San Francisco in 2011, striving for a Geographical Information Systems certificate at City College in the hopes of finding a new career.

 

“The goal is to pick up a skill,” Walker said, because “I’ve always done low wage office work.”

 

On top of that, his seemingly insatiable drive to advocate for student voices has led him to participate in student government.

 

During his first years at the school, he served on the Associated Students Council — both as president and vice-president — and last semester was the student shared governance coordinator.

 

He wants to empower them with information from complex issues, such as accreditation, to simple things like the optional five dollar student activities fee that funds many services.

 

“The problem is we don’t tell students what they get for that fee,” Walker said.  However, many students do use the programs that it funds, including the Bookloan Program, Peer Mentoring Program and other student club activities.

 

Organizing students is also one of his priorities.

 

“(I want) to get all of our campuses on the same page so we can actually fight for something tangible for all of our students,” Walker said, using discounts on MUNI passes as an example — and added that right now everyone is focused on saving the college from losing accreditation.