Last week, ASU’s Undergraduate Student Government created a new agenda for the 2016-17 school year, and while the goals vary across all four campuses, students remain the top priority.
USG created campus-specific plans that fall under the University-wide agenda serving the entire ASU population, and focuses on four goals: Health and wellness, University affinity, financial support for students and student academic achievement.
Here are some of the plans for each campus:
Tempe
Tempe USG President Brandon Bishop said he and his staff can reaffirm what USG means to the student body by revamping student services.
The ASU Safety Escort is one of those services. Bishop said he hopes to improve this service by cutting down student wait time to under 10 minutes for students using LiveSafe, a mobile safety app that helps students track where their safety escort is located. He also said he hopes to implement permanent signage across campus that show safety pickup locations.
ASU LiveSafe app from ASU B&F Communications on Vimeo.
Bishop said he would also like to make these student-run services more employee friendly by raising wages for student employees.
“In order to have better services, we thought having happier employees would be a huge part of that,” Bishop said.
Downtown Phoenix
USG Downtown President Jackson Dangremond said his first priority is student advocacy.
Dangremond said USGD Vice President of Policy Jimmy Arwood will lead this effort by getting more students involved in civic engagement, encouraging students to register to vote and keeping students informed on political processes.
Arwood will begin a policy talk series Sept. 2. The format of the series is a round-table discussion that will provide an opportunity for students to ask questions of civic leaders, nonprofit members and ASU professors.
Dangremond said he wants to provide the Downtown Phoenix campus with its own set of traditions because building a strong sense of community for Downtown students is important to him.
“The Tempe campus has the homecoming parade and whitewashing the A on A Mountain," Dangremond said. "We want to create our own downtown identity through our own traditions similar to that."
Our first Meet & Greet will be Sept. 14 from 11:30 - 1:30 p.m. in our office, Room L1-15! Did we mention free gelato? #USGDSenate
— USG Downtown (@USGDowntown) August 26, 2016
Polytechnic
USG Poly President Ryan O’Hara said his top priority is also student advocacy.
For instance, students at the campus have voiced grievances about the student housing portal and regulations that require students to sign up for a meal plan, regardless of whether they want it or not. O’Hara said he is working to minimize the steps involved in signing up for on-campus housing without also signing up for a meal plan.
“(My staff and I) have been working really hard on going to bat for the students and give a voice to the voiceless,” O’Hara said. “If there are any students that feel like they have no recourse that, to me, is a huge travesty.”
West
USG West President Sydney Wallace said her focus is to incorporate University-wide goals within the West campus, primarily with student awareness.
This year, USGW will implement Orgsync, a web platform that organizes student clubs. When a club comes to USGW for funding, its members will post their events onto an Orgsync page that allows students to find the event details.
“This year we have to have better communication with the students, because a lot of the time, students do not know of events going on on campus,” Wallace said.
Reach the reporter at vkeys@asu.edu or follow @VKeys1231 on Twitter.
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