Cesar Mendoza was elected the 2026-27 Associate Students president on March 13. However, the elect\u2019s leadership and advocacy did not begin with his involvement in Cal State Fullerton\u2019s ASI, but instead inspired it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The second-year business finance major\u2019s participation in ASI began this academic year, starting by serving as governance ambassador in August of 2025. A vacancy in the Board of Directors led to Mendoza\u2019s position as the representative for the College of Business around late September.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mendoza, coming to CSUF from a Mexican immigrant household in Bakersfield, California, is driven by the advocacy he did not feel he received growing up. Seeing that others on campus felt the same sparked the motivation for involvement on campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cComing from a Mexican immigrant family kind of gives you some sort of drive to create something better,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cMy parents came here to make mine and my siblings\u2019 lives better, I want to reciprocate that. Not only to my own family… but also anybody around me, making sure that they enjoy the life that they’re living.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This motivation is reflected in Mendoza\u2019s recent campaign with Sydney Yee, the incoming ASI vice president and third-year business major. Focused on communication and social approaches to outreach, the pair\u2019s campaign brought them face to face with the campus community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to connect with individuals, we spoke at a bunch of clubs and events together,\u201d Yee said. \u201cIt gave us a lot of reach to people and organizations that I wouldn\u2019t have met otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to both Mendoza and Yee, there are no definitive initiatives or policy changes the pair is looking to implement. Both elects look to further transparency between Titans and ASI, detailing where funding goes and continuing a face-to-face strategy of connection to the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking sure students understand that ASI is working for them and not against them in any way. We\u2019re always here to benefit students, because at the end of the day we\u2019re students also,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cIt comes back to them trusting us, a big thing in our campaign was the transparency aspect of it \u2014 an example of that is student fees.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mendoza details certain strategies for transparency in consideration for the 2026-27 term, including sending out detailed breakdowns of what different fees go towards, on-campus tabling and engaging promotions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Until joining ASI this year, Mendoza has sought involvement on campus almost exclusively through the business school with an exception in Sigma Pi, a fraternity that disaffiliated from campus in 2023 for six violations of student conduct policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since his freshman year at CSUF, the incoming ASI president has engaged with Titan Capital Management, Student Managed Investment Fund, Association of Latino Professionals For America and Titan Investment Banking Club. Mendoza held a board position for Titan Investment Banking Club in the 2025-26 academic year and has since reframed the club\u2019s outreach after its creation in 2024, now hosting weekly meetings to discuss topics in an active discussion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Damian Durango, a previous public speaking professor of Mendoza\u2019s, the previously mentioned drive for advocacy and transparency is not only translated into professional settings, but academic as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy understanding of Cesar\u2019s character developed over time through his consistent engagement in class discussions and activities. What became clear was that his participation was never performative,\u201d Durango wrote in an email to the Daily Titan. \u201cHe demonstrated a genuine interest in dialogue, in understanding others, and in contributing meaningfully to the learning environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two students from each of the eight colleges have been also elected to serve on the ASI Board of Directors for the 2026-27 year, also announced by ASI on March 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mendoza\u2019s and Yee\u2019s term, along with the incoming Board of Directors, will begin June 1, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cesar Mendoza was elected the 2026-27 Associate Students president on March 13. However, the elect\u2019s leadership and advocacy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,13009,3005,61870,6283,2684],"class_list":["post-232654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-asi","tag-csuf","tag-mendoza","tag-president","tag-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}