An Undergraduate Student Government Tempe senator introduced bills regarding online student representation in USG at a Senate meeting on Sept. 8.
Todd Thomas, USGT senator and junior studying family and human development, said he was inspired to draft the bills after reading USGT's bylaws and wanted to provide greater protections for online students.
Thomas introduced four bills, SB39-SB41 at the meeting, all regarding online student representation, with SB39 being passed.
The other three bills were tabled by USGT at Sept. 8 and Sept. 22 meetings.
SB39 amended USGT's bylaws to allow for online non-resident students to attend senate meetings by Zoom without penalty. USGT previously required college senators to attend meetings in person, limiting online student representation.
During the voting process, Thomas addressed the senate to stress the bill's importance and its impact on online students like himself.
"Online people outnumber campus people in most places ... that means that online is grossly misrepresented," Thomas said. "Without me being able to do my job, which is basically what this bill is asking, those people remain not able to have representation."
Following Thomas's comments, multiple senators changed their votes, and the bill ultimately passed the senate.
The overarching constitution of all University USGs states that students, online and in person, who are enrolled in at least one credit hour are members of USG and hold the right to representation and advocacy.
Despite the other three initial bills being tabled, Thomas has not given up and said he will be drafting new bills in the next couple of weeks encompassing the ideas presented in his original bills.
Thomas said he encourages other senators who might disagree with his bills to reach out to him and share their thoughts, but he has yet to hear opposition.
While other campuses have USG positions dedicated to online student engagement, Tempe no longer has a position like this in its senate.
Diego Montijo, speaker of the USGT senate and a junior studying business and political science, said the online engagement position last existed two years ago but was removed by the former administrations because they saw little engagement.
Montijo also said there had been past conversations regarding the creation of a separate USG solely for online students.
"I encourage Todd to explore these ideas and collaborate with the other student governments to see how we can maybe explore this idea," Montijo said.
In 2020, following the COVID-19 pandemic, online students attempted to create a separate USG for online students; however, the idea never came to fruition.
READ MORE: Online students in conversation with ASU about creating student government
Breathe Johnson, USGT online senator and junior studying criminal justice, emphasized the importance of online students being represented within USG.
"One of the biggest concerns and challenges for online students is that they feel somewhat unconnected to the broader ASU community," Johnson said. "They feel like they missed out on a lot of campus opportunities."
Johnson said she believes online students would benefit from more committees dedicated to their representation and advocacy as a whole.
Both Johnson and Thomas are members of the Online Advocacy Committee, an unofficial committee formed by online representatives from each campus' USG.
Johnson said the committee's main focus is to work with students on issues pertaining to the online student community.
Despite Thomas' commitment to introducing more protections for online students, he underscored USGT's commitment and collaboration in advancing online students’ interests.
"We have to remember that although we've had online students for six years, online in government is still very new," Thomas said. "There's a lot of things that we're trying to iron out, and we're all trying to figure out together."
Edited by Andi Ruiz, Emilio Alvarado and Senna James.
Reach the reporter at spkeelin@asu.edu.
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