Interviewed new AAVP Tony Falcone yesterday.

The pre-interview was far more disturbing to me then the actual interview. President Gabriel was talking some minor tidbits of ASUC gossip, only to be stopped twice by nervous ASUC people worried that 'the Daily Cal guy' (me) will somehow use this information for DOOM. Which makes no sense to me: if I hear anything interesting, it's going on Calstuff. As far as I'm concerned, the Daily Cal can find it there like everybody else. But I guess I'm Enemy now.

Tony was impressive, no question about it. His performance in office should, if all goes well, definitively silence the 'He should've been External VP' voices. Mr. Falcone has bigger plans then being External. His plan is to take the high professionalism and expertise of the External office, coupled with his extensive Administration contacts, and tie it with Academic's potential for actually affecting Academic policy. If correctly executed, it's a truly revolutionary shift that'll make AAVP a heavyweight in Berkeley affairs.

Let me elaborate on that potential. Academic Affairs deals with Academic Policy and Services. Unlike the three other Executive positions, it has several institutionalized methods for affecting the University: mainly the Academic Senate, but also several Committee appointments the AAVP gets. Add to that Mr. Falcone's personal ties to important Administration figures. Imagine now that the Student Academic Senate members are well-trained, motivated, and coordinated, backed up by a team of policy researchers and a supportive Senate.

The result should give AA the power to affect numerous key areas of academic life that no student could ever touch before. Examples include the Advising services, how Financial Aid is distributed, how Impacted classes like Business 10 are handled, and how many Units are allocated to classes. Y'know, big stuff. And this is only his planned 'Advocacy' wing. Tony also intends to expand and integrate the more traditional Projects into the University. Perhaps someday, when checking grades at BearFacts, you'll have an opportunity to rate your Professor for CalFACTS.

Administrative-wise, Mr. Falcone seems to favor a more traditional hierarchy over a Wally-esque 'informal teams' method.

Several pitfalls for enterprising other parties to look for: almost everything Mr. Falcone intends to do depends on University cooperation. At the present he has no reason to worry about obtaining it, but if he pushes for too much too quickly the slow University bureaucracy could get skittish. Also, Administrators have good reason to doubt that this AAVP will be the one to create some sort of Continuity, and therefore balk at more ambitious multi-year plans. It'll also be interesting to see if his plans overlap with those of External or OP: Tony is interested in affecting the University's Long Range Plan, something External would also want to be involved in.

But overall, an interesting and ambitious start for the AAVP office this year. Will be fun to watch how it turns out.

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