John Haskell ’12 has been named the ASSU executive chief of staff.
Executives Angelina Cardona ’11 and Kelsei Wharton ’12, elected last month to ASSU’s top posts, chose Haskell from among 10 applicants to manage their cabinet of students tasked with carrying out the work of the pair’s wide-ranging campaign platform.
Haskell, a prospective Urban Studies major from Philadelphia, said he met Wharton playing basketball and Cardona in the Stanford Democrats’ endorsement interviews for ASSU executives this spring. Haskell is the vice president of the Democrats group; he is also an officer in Students Taking on Poverty.
Cardona said Haskell “demonstrated a talent for being able to see the big vision” of her agenda, which she and Wharton promised would draw attention to issues of sexual assault, mental health and student group funding.
The executives and Haskell spent much of the weekend interviewing some 56 applicants for 14 cabinet positions. Cardona said the chief of staff is expected to devise a way to keep those students on task throughout the next 11 months of their term.
Former ASSU President David Gobaud, a coterminal student in computer science, kept a cabinet of 21 students. He made his co-chief of staff, Andy Parker ’11, vice president after former V.P. Jay de la Torre ’10 resigned in November.
Cardona said Haskell’s salary is yet to be set. They expect to fill cabinet posts by Friday.
-Elizabeth Titus