In the basement of Deering Library there are hundreds of folders filled with faded campaign fliers, yellowed bills about Vietnam War protests and meeting agendas with doodles from the disco era.
These records hold the history of the Associated Student Government. But ASG has not always been able to find them.
An ASG historian would help prevent the Senate from duplicating legislation, said Communication senior Alex Lurie, former ASG student services vice president. Weinberg senior David Kim, former financial vice president, mentioned this hypothetical historian position in a Jan. 11 speech to the Senate.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the Senate heard a bill to poll students about cell phone service on campus in an effort to improve it. The proposal resembled a 2004 bill that also asked for a poll to rate and improve cell phone service.
But the results of the 2004 poll could not be found immediately.
Some issues from the past decade that resurfaced this school year include funding for B-status student groups, providing financial aid to students during summer sessions and creating an apartment evaluation guide.
Perennial issues for ASG also include completely cancelling classes on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and reducing the funding for A&O Productions.
Because students cycle through NU every four years, maintaining a history of many student groups’ actions can be a problem.
Although there is already a system in place to look at past discussions when creating new legislation, bills going back further than a decade is the biggest problem, said Communication junior Jay Schumacher, executive vice president. A historian could help connect ASG with its older history.
Currently, ASG keeps its own record of bills and bylaws in a set of binders on a shelf in its office.
The records kept at University Archives in Deering Library date back to the foundation of ASG in 1969. ASG was formed from the Student Senate, which was ultimately abandoned because students said it pandered to NU administrators.
Much of the early legislation formed the basis for bills today. In 1969, ASG heard a bill to create a $5 quarterly activities fee for students. In 1971, ASG first discussed the concept of paper teacher evaluations. Five years later, it offered the provost an ultimatum: He had four weeks to approve the first CTECs or ASG would distribute them on their own.
Some of ASG’s early legislation did not have far-reaching effects. Examples include a bill to assign students to investigate whether undercover narcotics agents disguised as new freshmen were accepted to NU, a bill to fly U.N. flags adjacent to U.S. flags on campus and a bill to telegram the 1970 NU football team, telling them to “beat the hell out of Ohio State.”
University Archivist Patrick Quinn said the work of the early ASG was far more powerful.
“Student government has been irrelevant for almost 40 years,” he said. “After the end of the 1960s, there was a bit of an echo, but then interest and respect for student government diminished.”
Diana Samuels contributed to this report.
Reach Nitesh Srivastava at [email protected].
