As the four Associated Student Government leaders students elected last spring approach the end of their term, ASG President Jordan Heinz, Academic Vice President Ebo Dawson-Andoh, Executive Vice President Srikanth Reddy and Student Services Vice President Courtney Brunsfeld said they still have time to accomplish their goals.
The four officers, all endorsed during the election by The Daily, faced difficult election challenges from multiple opponents. But they soon discovered that the election battle paled in comparison to the issues they would encounter in office. From a dispute with administrators about Lagoon construction plans to the reorganization of student group advising, ASG leaders didn’t always follow their platforms, but they did respond to student concerns during their year at the helm.
Heinz: reality check
Heinz campaigned as the ASG insider, vowing last spring to build closer relationships with administrators. But Heinz said the lack of student input on the Lagoon construction plans showed some flaws in the relationships he had formed.
“(The Lagoon issue) is what brought to my attention that I was too confident and that I had overestimated my relationships with (administrators),” said Heinz, an Education senior. “(The lack of input) was as personally offensive as it was offensive to the student body. At the same time, it provided quite an opportunity to address these problems.”
Students for Ecological and Environmental Development Sen. Matt McCormick said Heinz was marginalized by administrators during the Lagoon process.
“He was kept in the dark as far as what was going on with the Lagoon, so it was impossible for him to do much more than react as the student body did,” said McCormick, a Weinberg sophomore.
As one of his last acts as ASG president, Heinz is preparing a proposal for student representation on the Board of Trustees.
Spring Quarter, Heinz worked to open North Beach for Reading Week and New Student Week, and tried to restart a football tailgate tradition in the fall.
But rainy weather and general student apathy contributed to low attendance at the 21-and-over tailgates.
“I didn’t know when I entered the presidency what I should do,” Heinz said. “I don’t think (ASG presidents) should be working on projects like North Beach or tailgates. The job is to create an efficiently run organization.”
Heinz is continuing to push for Norris University Center renovations and an increased sense of community on campus, two of his platform goals.
Dawson-Andoh: crediT the committee
Although Dawson-Andoh said he worked to support his committee members’ projects this year, administrators and ASG members said he deserves more credit than he gives himself.
By focusing on improving academic use of technology, the committee helped about 5 percent more students to fill out CTECs Fall Quarter than in the past.
“The whole push for an increase in CTECs has been from the administrative side,” Dawson-Andoh said. “An increase in the CTEC response rate would be more beneficial to students.”
The Academic Committee also continued efforts to establish a Latino studies program, which is tentatively slated to start in Fall Quarter 2003, he said.
Off-campus Sen. Rachel Lopez said Dawson-Andoh has helped make strides toward the program’s implementation.
“Ebo has played a really good role because he has always been willing to help me in any way that he could,” said Lopez, a Weinberg junior. “Ebo has a really good heart and sometimes that’s hard to find that in ASG these days.”
Associate Provost Stephen Fisher said Dawson-Andoh’s efforts helped ensure his projects, such as offering unofficial degree audits on CAESAR, were accomplished.
“A Senate bill alone isn’t enough, but when a bill is accompanied by what I would loosely call lobbying, it can help push matters forward that are important to students,” Fisher said. “It makes a good deal of difference when there is additional follow-through, as Ebo has helped develop with the relevant university staff.”
But while Dawson-Andoh sought to improve Martin Luther King Jr. Day programming, attendance fell to nearly half of the previous year’s total.
Reddy: money matters
Reddy served on Student Activities Finance Board for two years before running for executive vice president on the platform that student groups would benefit from an increased understanding of the funding process.
This quarter, Reddy and outgoing Financial Vice President Carson Kuo proposed a constitutional amendment to change the student group advising system.
“That change was really important and it will increase the efficiency of both committees for years to come,” said Reddy, a McCormick junior.
Under the new system, SAFB deals exclusively with A-status groups, which receive funding from the Student Activities Fee. Executive Committee, which had counseled the A-status groups, now works only with B- and T-status groups, which receive no ASG funding.
“SAFB account executives and the (financial vice president) have always known the most about group programming,” said A&O Sen. Neil Shah, a Weinberg senior. “Everything SAFB does is consistent. I can’t really say that about anything else in ASG or even at Northwestern.”
Reddy and Kuo also joined forces to introduce a resolution supporting an SAF increase from $33 to $40 per quarter. They reintroduced the resolution after it failed twice in the Senate and senators finally passed it on a third vote.
Brunsfeld: attacking issues
The Student Services Committee has tackled issues ranging from campus safety to creating a Chicago guide for NU students.
“I have 25 senators on my committee and every one of them is actively involved in a project,” said Brunsfeld, a Weinberg junior. “My biggest accomplishment is probably how effective my committee has become. It seems unprecedented to me.”
But addressing such a wide variety of issues has left few bills fully implemented.
“I don’t want to leave a lot of baggage for the next person, but there are a lot of issues that have not come to fruition,” she said.
Brunsfeld said she chose to address issues as they arose rather than sticking to her platform ideas.
“We’ve done a really good job of reacting to issues that have come up,” Public Affairs Residential College Sen. Eileen Keeley said. “My only criticism would be that we tended to react to things rather than to be proactive.”
In addition, Brunsfeld was responsible for planning ASG’s Spring Break trip. In the past, between 150 and 200 students have attended the trip, but 12 students will go to the Bahamas this spring, Brunsfeld said.
“If you look at all the different areas that student services has to deal with, most of those areas are more important than the Spring Break trip,” Brunsfeld said. “I really don’t know why the numbers were so low, but I really refuse to say that it was a mistake on my part.”
