Associated Student Government. Sound familiar? The shame is most students at Colorado Mesa University don’t have a clue of what that is or what the senators in ASG do.
People at this school don’t realize how much power our senators have over the money we spend.
Even senators involved don’t understand the responsibility they hold. I can’t speak for the senators this year, but last year I was elected as a senator for the spring semester.
Sure, I understood I would be voting on bills and how much money we’re giving to certain clubs. But honestly, there were times during my tenure I didn’t want to spend 30 minutes or more discussing a bill.
At times I just wanted to look at the bill, make sure the club or organization wasn’t asking for an insane amount of money, approve the bill and move on with the rest of my day.
Luckily, I am able to redeem myself with my current role with the Fee Allocation Committee. However, this close to ASG election season, I’m here to give some advice to people who are considering running for a place in ASG: take it seriously every single day.
This isn’t a joke. I know I’m not the only one that didn’t take every meeting seriously last year. Quite frankly that’s just wasting student’s time and money.
Being an ASG senator is hard work. You are representing a mass amount of people. You are representing the entire mass communication or the health and sciences departments.
It’s hard work. People should come up with you asking for help with funding their trip to a conference that could change their lives. Your constituents should be able to contact you and meet with you in person during your office hours.
I can’t tell you how many times we were scolded for not being present at our office hours. If you are thinking of running in the upcoming election, realize just how much responsibility is on your shoulders as a senator.
You are literally handed student funds and you are one of the select few people chosen to determine how your fellow peers’ funds are spent.
If you just agree to every bill without at least attempting to save your students and the school some money, you are simply just lazy. We don’t need people who are lazy running for student senate because it looks good on a resume. You should run for ASG because you are committed to making this school a better place.
I have a lot of respect for the people who take their role in student government seriously. To the people interested in running for ASG, ask current senators how much work they have to do.
If you are willing to sacrifice hours talking to the people you represent, looking at every bill presented to you with detail and ready to make CMU a better school then I absolutely recommend you run for ASG senate.
But if you are somebody who isn’t going to take their role seriously, do your fellow students and school a favor: forget about running for senate and wasting a golden opportunity to make a change.
