Veronica Aguilar adresses the Undergraduate Student Government on Jan. 13 in Tempe. Aguilar discussed federal employment prospects for alumni of the program during the first USG meeting of the spring semester. (Jonathan Galan/The State Press)As a new semester begins, student government organizations are introducing new events and programs to benefit students on all four ASU campuses, including one campaign aiming to bring Jimmy Fallon to ASU and another trying to establish in-state tuition rates for undocumented students and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival recipients.
Tempe Undergraduate Student Government Senate President Will Smith said USG is involved with many facets of student life and leadership, ranging from relaying student concerns to collaborating with diverse organizations to publicize issues that go beyond ASU’s campuses.
“USG gives students at ASU a voice in the day-to-day operations of ASU,” Smith said. “USG expresses concerns at the local and state level, maintains and improves student life on campus, collaborates with various organizations to raise awareness and address issues on campus and acts as a sounding board for students with concerns on campus and work with them to get issues solved.”
Even though it operates under the radar, USG is responsible for many of the programs and services established on all four campuses, such as the bike co-op and safety escort service. It also meets with ASU administration, the Arizona Board of Regents, and the Arizona Legislature to advocate for issues such as affordable education.
In addition to formal policies regarding university issues, USG advocates for entertaining events. Starting Jan. 21, USG is encouraging all students to use #ASUTonight on social media to persuade Jimmy Fallon to visit ASU during his Super Bowl coverage.
Graduate students can voice their opinions and concerns to the Graduate and Professional Student Association, or GPSA. GPSA acts as a governing body for graduate students on all four ASU campuses.
GPSA president German Cadenas said GPSA is trying to encourage Regents to lower tuition rates for DREAMer students, or students who were brought illegally to the U.S. as children, graduated from an Arizona high school but still have not been granted legal residency.
These students have to pay the out-of-state tuition rate, even though many of them have lived in Arizona for many years.
“We trust that they will do the right thing and find a different tuition rate altogether,” Cadenas said. “A lot of (students) can’t afford out-of-state tuition and have been finding support for many years through GPSA.”
GPSA will travel to Washington, D.C., with the National Association of Graduate-Professional Studentsin March with the hope of speaking on a variety of issues ranging from funding for higher education and research to opening access to educational resources.
On Feb. 13, GPSA will host a leadership summit open to all graduate student leaders to talk about support for the organization and find a common ambition for the ASU graduate student experience.
Outreach director for Tempe campus Carlo Allende said there will be many social events and workshops on all four campuses during Grad Week, which will take place March 9 - 13.
Last semester GPSA launched a grant challenge program. The organization reached out to graduate students and asked them to pitch ideas for new programs they wanted GPSA to create. The feedback from this program spurred the creation of the travel program, which allows GPSA to provide travel grants to students looking to travel for job interviews, internships, or conferences.
CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article placed a quote in an incorrect spot. This version has been updated to fix the error.
Reach the reporter at Jlsuerth@asu.edu or follow @SuerthJessica on Twitter.
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