The Paly Voice interviewed Paly’s new Student Activities Director Kindel Launer to see what she is looking forward to this year.

The Paly Voice: What is the process you went through to become the new student activities director?

Kindel Launer: I had to go through the regular PAUSD (Palo Alto Unified School District) application and submission process, like any other teaching job. I also had to get letters of recommendation and attend interviews with [Auditor] Julia Sing, [ASB president] Kevin Ward and [Assistant Principal] Todd Feinberg.

TPV: How has the transition from teaching English to being the student activities director affected you?

KL: Sometimes you have an “Ah-ha!” moment when you realize how you can really help students. Like a math problem, and you know how sometimes you’re just staring at it and you don’t understand it, and you don’t understand it and you don’t understand it and then, finally, it’s like, “Oh, I get it.”

TPV: What do you think is the Associated Student Body’s greatest asset?

KL: The students themselves. They have a vision of how they want things to be. And you know, they can see a lot better than the rest of us.

TPV: What are some of your goals, some things you would like to improve about ASB?

KL: Regular, expected, transparent communication. Government should do its business in public and we will do our business in public.

TPV: Does ASB have a central theme this year?

KL: One of the big ones is communication. We also want more students at more events. On top of that, we would like to see more support for students already at events. Really, we are trying to focus on involvement, more students, more events and more communication.

TPV: What can the student body expect from ASB this year?

KL: We really want to focus on improvements from last year. One of the best ways we’ve found to make improvements is to look at past practices and analyze what went well and what went no so well. So the students can definitely expect ASB to do a lot of reflecting and lot of improving.

TPV: What did you and ASB do to help prevent Freshman Friday?

KL: First of all, I would like to say that that is not how students at Paly should act, that’s not who we are. However, as most students know ASB held a rally at lunch that focused on inter-class unity. We also designed and sold spirit T-shirts to everyone to cultivate an atmosphere of community.

TPV: What is your current status of communication with the administration? How do you plan to improve it?

KL: We had our first meeting with the administration today and we will have weekly meetings every Thursday up in room 23. We will work on publishing those minutes and all minutes from future meetings.