The whiteboard in Associated Student Government President Mike McGee’s office, with a comprehensive list of administrative departments, offers a glimpse into the organized chaos that has been his life since taking office last April.
“You can never get everything you want done because this isn’t a full-time job, even though we spend those hours on it,” the Communication senior said. “There’s only 24 hours in a day.”
Despite these time limitations, McGee said he thought ASG made headway on numerous issues during his presidency, especially in working with the administration.
“We’ve gotten everything we asked for from the administration, but we didn’t come and say, ‘Hey, we want this now,”‘ he said. “It’s been a partnership and an exploration of how we could better work together.”
McGee said he and Tommy Smithburg, ASG vice president, knew working with the administration would be imperative to advance the goals originally outlined in their campaign platform, which included alcohol safety, improvements to the shuttle system, off-campus initiatives and a proposal for a new student center.
Of those, McGee said he is especially proud of the work done in advancing the prospect of a new student center. Continuing with the plans made by former ASG President Neal Sales-Griffin, McGee and ASG presented a proposal to the administration Winter Quarter.
“Everyone knows Norris sucks,” he said. “What we haven’t focused on is why. There’s a lack of meeting spaces, a lack of general entertainment options, a lack of food options … this is something that needs to remain a priority.”
In addition to advancing promises made during his campaign, McGee has had to address various concerns raised by the student body over the course of the year. An incident involving blackface at the end of October was one of the more visible issues. McGee and other student groups, administrators and faculty worked quickly to organize a forum attended by more than 600 students and staff, he said.
The incident highlighted McGee’s ability to identify an issue and work quickly to address it, said Burgwell Howard, dean of students. Something that could have had a bad effect on the University community instead resulted in a gathering with positive discussion, he said.
“Mike really did an excellent job in terms of setting the right tone and rallying people,” he said. “It was a great example of University faculty, administrators and students working together around a common concern.”
Alessio Manti, who plans to run for McGee’s current position, said ASG and, by extension, McGee have fallen short on completing projects which affect students in their day-to-day lives. The SESP sophomore worked with Bill Pulte, who also ran for ASG president last year. Manti said he would shelve issues like the off-campus initiative McGee worked on in lieu of creating new funding avenues for ASG.
“I noticed their progress report lacked those tangible accomplishments,” he said. “That’s not to disparage the amount of work they put in, but it was a lot of lobbying the administration or committees instead of saying, ‘We got this done.'”
McGee said he recognizes he did not complete every project outlined in his campaign, but he said it’s partly the nature of the ASG presidency. The perennial issues sometimes had to be put aside when unforeseen issues arose, he said.
“ASG can’t do everything. We don’t have the manpower, money or time,” he said. “Looking back, you always see ways you could have been more efficient, but it’s not a static environment and other issues came up (that) we had to deal with, and I think we did a good job with that.”
Claire Lew, who has worked closely with McGee this year as ASG public relations director and is also petitioning to run for president, said she has been impressed by McGee’s work ethic and drive over the past year.
“A lot of people don’t realize the sacrifices he’s made while doing this job and all of the late nights he spends in the office working for students,” she said. “If anyone can go to bed happy knowing he’s done everything in his power to make a difference and do the best job possible, it’s Mike.”
As his time in office nears a close, McGee will continue to work on the projects he has spent the past year lobbying for and promoting across campus until the official transition takes place April 21. He would not have taken the job if he did not care about NU, he said.
“Plenty of the work we do goes unseen,” he said. “We try to do our best and we get some things right and some things wrong. But at the end of the day, we’re passionate about this, about the University.”
