Editorial: Recommendations to next year’s ASG members

With Associated Student Government (ASG) elections wrapped up, as the confetti settles and campaign leaflets hit the recycling bin, The Advocate would like to congratulate and advise the incoming ASG president and vice president.

Hats off to Laura Aguon and Eduardo Ortiz for winning this year’s election, especially as the first write-in candidates to do so. That being said, we at The Advocate would also like to add our input for the upcoming academic year.

This year’s ASG had both its merits and opportunities for improvement.

Looking back at an editorial last spring that advised this year’s ASG, the leaders took our suggestion to increase the breadth and scope of lobbying efforts on behalf of students by engaging more students to lobby the Oregon Legislature, and by increasing the amount of trips. We were happy to note that ASG made a strong effort to lobby this year in Salem, especially for the landmark tuition equity bill that was passed recently.

There are, however, areas where we see a need for improvement.

The first is the need to more adequately publicize events and activities for students that are staged by ASG and Student Activities Board (SAB.) Too many times this year, The Advocate saw an event being advertised for the first time a scant few days before the event.

Having seen the ASG and SAB leaders at work explaining how they plan, and pay, for events far in advance, we find ourselves cringing when it’s advertised only a few days before it occurs. This limits its exposure to students and faculty, the chief intended beneficiaries of the events that are paid for with student funds.

Thus, we suggest that ASG and SAB take an active role in advertising these events with the goal to pack each event. If ASG and SAB leaders must fight to win funding for their events, then they should want to make sure that as many students as possible can show up and enjoy them.

Another area we see that could use some TLC is the arena of transparency. As of now, the Executive Cabinet, Student Organization Council and Senate each post their meeting minutes outside their offices for the casual passerby to peruse. The problem is that the ASG and SAB offices are located in a side hallway in the Student Union that may not seem readily accessible to students who are unfamiliar with the layout of the Student Union. Our suggestion is to continue to post them outside those offices, but also to post PDFs of the minutes online or on their Facebook, and to host have monthly forums to discuss ASG and SAB events and plans with students.

Historically, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt utilized radio broadcasts to talk with the nation about his plans and other efforts by the government. We recommend ASG use the same approach, but perhaps in person in the Student Union. With plenty of publicity beforehand, of course.

We also would like to see a long-term ASG project come to fruition: the implementation of the diversity resource center.

Funds for the diversity resource center were allocated to ASG two years ago during the Student Finance Council. This year’s ASG had planned to create the diversity center in the unused Lake Room at the Student Union but waited for the college to hire a center coordinator before it broke ground on the facility. While this makes sense from the standpoint that the new coordinator should have input for the center she or he will be running, ASG shouldn’t leave such an important and timely task in the hands of the college administration and expect it to be completed in a flash. Anyone still expecting the old Childhood Development Center in Lot M to be turned into additional parking space by the college can readily attest to this.

Thus, we want to see next year’s ASG leaders push the administration to follow through on its commitment to ASG and the student body in order for the diversity resource center to become a reality and fill the student needs it was supposed to meet for students sometime this year.

ASG is the figurehead for the student body and the main voice for student representation. As such, we at The Advocate hope that next year’s student government will take our suggestions and we look forward to next year and seeing how ASG and SAB will work toward leading and supporting all students to greater heights.