With the Associated Student Government (ASG) elections coming up, Colorado Mesa University’s student government is in desperate need of a stronger online presence. Polls for the 2018 student election open on April 11, but as the website currently stands, almost no students who want to vote know how to.
Navigating all the way to the election poll is so strenuous it almost deters students from actually voting. One of the most important parts of having a good student government is the accessibility, and not knowing how to contact, request, or even vote, is a problem. ASG needs to rearrange their directory in a way that’s easily understood and simple enough for even a two-week freshman to maneuver.
The only well known way to find ASG is on CMU’s official website under the student life tab. There, you can find a summary of what our student government does and who is in charge of what areas. The only problem is, that little tab doesn’t give any news, updates or even information that shows where you can vote.
To find all of the details and events put on by ASG, you have to click a link, that isn’t made apparent on the website, that takes you to their OrgSync. There, they have all of the tabs we would need to find, such as polls for the elections, forms, events, news, ect. From there is easy sailing.
ASG is a huge influencer on school clubs and activities. They are involved and in control of funds for almost everything that students interact with, so being present online and in student’s lives is extremely important.
The accessibility to ASG’s main site need to be more apparent on CMU’s website, and perhaps during election season polls can be accessible from the student life tab. It could even be as simple as, “Here’s the link to our main website,” or something easy to make it more clear. Students can’t vote in elections, or voice their opinions, if they don’t know where to do it.
Along with making their website accessibility simpler, ASG should also increase their presence and importance. The general student public should know more about the importance of ASG and the importance of voting in elections, especially since the government has such a big influence on student life and clubs. If this was made a bit more aware to students then more people would vote and ASG would be more helpful to the student body.
