The Associated Students of Arizona State University Downtown is kicking off its first year as an official student government, which is expected to bring a lot of changes to the campus.
Although ASASUD planned on one of those changes being a fully-functioning student government, it still has not filled every position.
It’s missing an honors-college senator, two education and leadership senators, two freshman senators, two senators from the School of Letters and Sciences and two senators from University College, Cronkite senator and journalism junior Charlie Jannetto said.
ASASUD president and journalism sophomore Tania Mendes said the group is still taking applications for these positions.
Mendes said that their slogan for this year is “communication, community, commitment.”
“Our commitment this year is to build a foundation of communication between us, students and administration,” Mendes said.
One of the hot topics during the campaign last spring was the fact that many students on the Downtown campus were unaware of the existence of a student government. Mendes said she plans on changing that this year.
“We plan on getting out, showing our faces, spreading the word,” Mendes said. “We’re going to have to make an effort to get out of our offices, which is how it should be.”
Non-profit leadership and management senior Olga Lykhvar ran against Mendes last year for president and came in second.
She’s now serving as the director of administration. Mendes said the group has been able to integrate some of their visions. Both have a common goal of being a more transparent student government.
“My personal goal is to make sure ASASUD is public. Nothing should be hiding behind the door of our office; students should know where money is going and they should be updated with all of our processes,” Lykhvar said.
Both Mendes and Lykhvar said they want to make more use of Downtown resources as well.
“[Tania] has done a very good job trying to focus on creating a new community that involves both ASU students and the surrounding community, which is a common goal that we have,” Lykhvar said.
One of their steps toward this goal will be ASASUD hosting a movie night at the Civic Space Park on the last Friday of every month. This month they will be showing “Twilight.”
Another change this fall will be the ASASUD Web site because during the campaign students complained it was hard to locate and use.
Mendes said they will be using a program called OrgSync, which will be more suitable for their purpose.
“It has functions for calendars, places to record meeting minutes and it looks user-friendly,” Mendes said. “As soon as we’re all trained with it, it should be a great place for students to get information.”
Returning Downtown student and criminal justice graduate student Jason Dolence said he hopes one of the things that ASASUD focuses on this fall is advocating for students.
“I think it’s harder to get the word out on the Downtown campus because the majors here are very specialized,” Dolence said. “But while it’s harder, the first and foremost goal should be speaking for the students, trying to take the student voices and relaying them back to the administration. The students are the ones whose concerns should be addressed.”
Reach the reporter at sheydt@asu.edu.
