The official website for the Tempe Undergraduate Student Government is up and running again after a brief period of technical difficulties.
In late August, USG-T learned its existing website no longer belonged to it and, over the course of 11 days, rushed to replace it. The student government's website now features a new domain, improved resources and more outreach.
Rishik Chaudhary, the student body president and a senior studying supply chain management and business, said the organization lost access to its website on Aug. 24. The next day, he said USG-T contacted GoDaddy, the company which hosted the URL.
Chaudhary said they also reached out to the information technology department at ASU's Educational Outreach and Student Services on Aug. 27. The same day, GoDaddy informed the organization of the cause of the sudden failure: a higher bidder purchasing their domain, which was asuusg.com, by surprise.
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"Somebody paid more money for the URL specifically, so they overbid how much we normally pay for the website," Chaudhary said.
The details of the individual who bought the URL, which was originally created in 2011, are not publicly available.
Not wanting to spend student funds on an increased fee for the website, Chaudhary said he and his cabinet elected to let the old domain go, avoiding a potential bidding war.
Nathan Goyol, the USG-T director of public relations and a senior studying political science, said USG-T needed to quickly create a new website, as it is important for the students it supports.
"The main issue with our website was the fact that a lot of people use it to get access to resources and information about funding," Goyol said. "Making sure that it was up and running and available to our students was important, because that's one of the ways that we serve them."
On Sept. 1, Chaudhary said USG-T met with Lance Harrop, the Tempe dean of students, to find a solution. A new website was created and launched two days later.
Chaudhary said the quick result was the product of hours of work and effort by his staff. He credited Ryan Cantrill, the chief of staff and a senior studying communication and political leadership and history, for the rapid response.
"I could not have done it without him," Chaudhary said. "He administered all of the meetings, as well as working with GoDaddy to get a new domain and a URL for our website to be up."
Cantrill said he enjoys being involved in work like this and praised other USG-T members.
"The heart and soul of the team here is truly focused on students, so it's really exciting to see," Cantrill said. "We've been able to accomplish some really impressive things already, and we're really just getting started."
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Goyol said USG-T is hopeful the new website won't run into the same issues that led to its creation.
The student government is currently working to advertise its new website to the student body, Cantrill said.
"We've continued to update social media advertising, so the social media campaign will only grow stronger from there," Cantrill said. "It really is a grassroots campaign to make sure everyone learns of the website update."
The new website, which is asuusgt.org, also includes new features the old website didn't have.
Chaudhary said the changes include a list of members, job descriptions for USG-T positions, information about funding and a list of resources.
Cantrill said the old website "needed to change anyways."
"The site has gone over a complete transformation over the summer from our old site," Cantrill said. "It's a pretty fluid website, and it'll only continue to get updated from here."
Edited by Carsten Oyer, George Headley and Sophia Braccio.
Reach the reporter at mharr200@asu.edu.
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Megan Harris is a Public Service and Public Policy student in her debut semester with the State Press. Megan is also affiliated with the American Red Cross and ASU’s Children’s Equity Project.
