OUTGOING ASG LEADERS TALK SHOP

Mt. Hood’s outgoing ASG (Associated Student Government) leaders – President PonyBoy Peterman and Vice President Nathan Skarphol – served through a tumultuous year in which newly hired faculty advisers had as much to learn about Mt. Hood’s ASG as any new students.

The two lame-duck student leaders also had to navigate internal policies and learn functions of government based on limited records left behind by previous administrations. Usually advisers are able to pass information on from year to year, but when all the advisers are recent arrivals, that becomes a challenge.

“We’re kind of having to build that up from scratch or what we can salvage from the files,” said Peterman.

Skarphol said that when it came to Finance Council work (distributing student fee revenue to MHCC student athletics/activity groups), the record keeping was ramped up by this year’s team. “We’ve made sure to keep pretty meticulous records because that was a huge pain last year. We had a ton of records missing,” he said.

Regarding his role as president, the platform that was established during a campaign can evolve while in office, said Peterman.

“A lot of things will change based on what is realistic… What I’m happy about is a lot of our goals this year have stayed consistent with what I was pushing for and that’s like internal resources,” he said. “To be fair, my platform was pretty attainable.”

Ultimately, the most visible achievement of this year’s executive team was the expansion of Barney’s Pantry and the merger of ASG’s Executive Cabinet and the Student Senate.

The internal merger, which happened during finals week of Fall Term 2017, effectively dissolved the senate, which was absorbed by the Executive Cabinet, forming a single governing body. Multiple positions in the senate were consolidated into four new positions in the Executive Cabinet.

Before the merger and the bylaw changes, there were 26 ASG members, with 19 of them being voting members. The new model requires just 13 voting members.

According to Peterman, going forward, ASG will be “a more tight-knit group, which means they’ll have to work harder to publicize themselves.” He said he hopes that also means a better-coordinated group.

One continuing concern he raised was the checks and balances, however. When the student senate still existed, its responsibilities of keeping a check on executive action was written into the bylaws. There is no such language in the current system.

“With two branches, at least the way we had the bylaws written, the branches checked each other’s decisions, so now we’re going to have to work on the regulations and bylaws surrounding that,” Peterman said.

Still, Skarphol said the merger increased productivity in ASG. “We’ve gotten a lot more projects done, we have a lot more students willing to come to us and knowing who to go to,” he said.

One year is not enough time to see any real change with the new structure of government, conceded Peterman. “I think if you looked five years in the future, ASG could be completely different,” he said.

To the incoming ASG president and vice president for 2018-19, the current executives agreed that Mt. Hood students should come first, no matter the decision at hand.

“Put the students first,” said Peterman. He also said that it’s important for the new president to know exactly what the job is. “Study policies, study them religiously. Become a master of the bylaws, and be dependable, be reliable, show up. An hour early is better than five minutes late,” he said.

All ASG executives are under more scrutiny than other students. “People are going to really bank on you and they are going to be watching you,” Peterman said.

Skarphol said the vice president’s job is to support the president and the team. “That’s what you need to focus on because if your team isn’t supported, you won’t get anything done, or you might not get as much done,” he said. He also said that all available advisers are an indispensable resource. “Don’t think you have to do everything yourself. Be willing to look outside and ask for help,” he said.

Looking ahead to next year, Peterman plans to dual-enroll in Portland State University and MHCC to study medicine. He’s interested in a “biomedical engineering-type position.” He said he has always been interested in “bridging the gap between medicine and technology.”

Skarphol plans to transfer to the University of Oregon to study accounting and will join the student government there, as well. He would take whatever ASG position is available, but would like to work on finances since “the structure that we have here for finances is very comparable,” he said.