SBVPF Candidate: Clarissa Liang

Clarissa Liang, a second-year student majoring in business administration, is running to be the Student Body Vice President for Finance (SBVPF). Liang currently serves as the vice-chair of the Joint Funding Committee (JFC), where she works under the current SBVPF to fund student organizations. According to Liang, her work in the JFC has not only given her a unique perspective but also more experience. Liang's platform centers around increasing coordination with the Student Senate and the Graduate Student Assembly, increasing JFC turnout and participation, maintaining impartiality, and increasing efficiency.
In an interview with The Tartan, Liang said one of her first priorities as SPVPF would be to reduce the confusion for new members who join the committee because she has experienced how overwhelming joining the JFC can be.
“I was expected to figure everything out myself as a new member. I felt so lost, so that's definitely something that I want to work on,” Liang said. She added that she wants to “get everyone up to par and to standardize what we do to not have to focus on the administrative things.”
But while she wants to make smaller changes to increase efficiency, she will maintain the same format of having 5 subdivisions of the JFC that all deal with different Carnegie Mellon University organizations.
“The smaller committees offer more flexibility because it is easier to coordinate less people, so that has an added benefit and is more efficient,” Liang said.
However, one change she proposes is to add more graduate students to the JFC to further increase diversity in ideas.
“I may add a couple more students within the JFC members to have more graduate participation and voice because they are still part of CMU,” said Liang. She added that she will continue to prioritize diversity and inclusion in the JFC’s budget cut decisions.
Liang said, “When we look at budgets, we have a metric that we strictly follow. Something that we have started to do is to include impact and diversity and inclusion. When we look at budgets and do final cuts, we are deciding whether to give an organization more money — something we consider is, is this organization making moves to be more diverse? Are they making moves to be more inclusive? And are they making a large impact within campus to involve more people?”
Liang also hopes to focus on having clearer communication and transparency so the JFC and student organizations can be on the same page.
“What the JFC does, I think is really phenomenal,” Liang said. She added, “Every organization has to have their fair share. I truly want organizations to be the best that they can, and the JFC will support that.”
Liang's campaign website can be found here.