Tempe Undergraduate Student Government President Cassidy Possehl poses atthe Memorial Union. (Photo by Ryan Liu)
Tempe Undergraduate Student Government executives have been busy working over the summer to prepare for the fall semester.
President Cassidy Possehl has implemented a new appropriations process and helped establish a One University Meeting, which will begin in November with each campus’s USG meeting together to pass University-wide policy.
“The One University Senate Meeting is a big project we are excited about,” Possehl said. “We are going to be passing a bill at each campus that says an organization or individual cannot bring a bill to the floor of more than two student governments.”
The One University Meeting will allow campuses to vote collectively on bills organizations or students want to bring to the floor of multiple campuses.
“If they want to bring a bill to more than two campuses, they have to bring it to our meeting on November 15, and we will vote as a campus,” Possehl said.
Each campus will vote a collective "yea" or "nay," she said.
Special event planning is also receiving an overhaul under Possehl with a more collaborative approach.
“Basically my special events director will not be doing any events, or maybe just one, that is just USG,” Possehl said. “Other than that the events have to be in tandem with an organization that we haven’t worked with before or a coalition or college council.”
Vice President of Services Brian Salerno said he is excited and ready to get the semester running.
“We are definitely excited to get all of our services up and running, and we have our public relations team ready to hand out fliers and meet students to get the word out to maximize the usage of all of the services that we offer,” he said.
The $150-per-year athletic fee, which student governments approved in fall 2013, will begin to offer new services to students this semester and a special committee is being created to work on where the money will go.
“There will be an ad hoc committee established to work on specific pieces of the athletics fee, such as advising and students' perspective to the services and also all new services that will begin,” Possehl said.
Helping students understand USG and certain processes is a major concern for Possehl and new ways for instruction on these processes will soon begin.
“We are working on implementation of funding and a new series of workshops that will help people get through the loops and hoops organizations have to go through,” Possehl said.
Intern Director Ivan Pemberton said he is excited to see the executive staff and senate collaborating on issues.
"I feel that this year, we have an unprecedented amount of staff and senate interaction," he said. "It is really nice to see such a collaboration happening so early in the year."
Reach the reporter at jshanco2@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @joey_hancock
