Five students will meet with University President Henry Bienen and other administrators March 8 to seek funding for recreation items, improved academic advising and an Asian-American outreach coordinator.
The students, members of the Undergraduate Priorities Committee, also are asking administrators to better map the Technological Institute and put up more directional signs in the building. They also are considering a big-ticket item, such as a climbing wall on campus.
The UPC, created three years ago by then-Associated Student Government President Ariel Friedler, is a five-member group that surveys Northwestern students with e-mails and interviews to gather student suggestions. The group then presents its results to administrators, asking for funds to realize its goals.
In the past, the UPC has requested – and received – funding for professional academic advisers for the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, a $30,000 lecture series and improvements to Patten and Blomquist gymnasiums.
Weinberg senior Jeff Miller, who has served on UPC for two years, said the committee is effective because it does not have to go through bureaucratic channels to reach administrators.
“We speak to the people making the decisions,” Miller said. “They have the power and ability to say, ‘I like that idea, let’s find the money to do it.'”
The other students on the committee are ASG President Adam Humann, ASG Executive Vice President Jordan Heinz, ASG Publicity Chairwoman Kate Duffy and Speech sophomore Lena Lamprecht.
Duffy, a Speech junior, said she found administrators eager to act on students’ suggestions.
“Administrators probably don’t even know those issues exist and it’s great that we can tell them,” said Duffy. “Sometimes they have no other way of finding out about these problems.”
Eugene Sunshine, NU’s senior vice president for business and finance, said administrators value the extensive research that UPC performs before making suggestions.
“The administration really appreciates the hard work and effort they put into surveying their colleagues and researching the various items,” he said. “They come to us with a well-thought out and well-reasoned list of things they would like to do.”
Sunshine said administrators have funded most of the UPC’s requests from the last two years.
“The students were quite pleased with the outcome,” he said.
Humann said the committee works with administrators throughout the year, and that UPC’s ideas are sometimes adopted before the group makes its proposal.
He said administrators are already working on one of the committee’s ideas – opening a beach behind the Sports Pavilion and Aquatics Center during Spring Quarter.
The UPC was created as an ASG committee, but now it is only loosely connected. The ASG president is always a member of the committee, and ASG oversees the committee to make sure it is always staffed with undergraduates.
Miller said that although the group has increased its workload each year since its inception, he does not think its membership should be expanded beyond five students.
“I think the size of the committee is very good right now,” he said. “It’s big enough to gather information from different sectors of campus, but still small enough to make decisions quickly.”
The committee will begin looking for replacements for Miller during Spring Quarter. The new ASG president will take Humann’s spot unless the presidency goes to a current member of the UPC.
