The ASG Senate is broken. It faces crises of legitimacy and representation. First, the student body does not trust the ASG Senate to take action on the most critical issues facing students and the university more broadly. If students look to anyone to confront these issues, they look to campus-wide elected officials like the ASG President and Vice President. Even then, there is skepticism.

ASG Senate might have the ear of the administration, but it seems like anyone can become a senator. Off-campus seats are distributed to friends, and solicitations for senator applications are sent widely over listservs. When a student can become a senator without proven commitment or competency, the institution loses its power and legitimacy.

Moreover, the Senate represents specific groups of students rather than the student body as a whole. Senators come from the Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Association, and ASG-recognized student groups. A freshman in South Asian Student Alliance (an A-status ASG group) who has joined a fraternity has twice as much Senate representation as the freshman involved in Political Union (a non-ASG group) who has not joined a fraternity.

The current system has also recruited a disproportionate number of freshman and sophomore senators. While we respect the energy that many freshmen bring to student groups, the Senate is not the natural point of departure for a freshman’s involvement. Are freshmen equipped to vote on funding for Mayfest when they have never experienced Dillo Day? While freshmen might have excellent ideas, do they have the network of administrators and students and the familiarity with the campus bureaucracy to make these ideas happen?

This does not mean that we should declare the Senate lost and ignore the 50 or so students who gather each week to pass resolutions. These students still vote on the allocation of student group funding and have the capacity to initiate reforms that would improve the university.

Thus, over the past month, a group including ASG Senators, ASG Cabinet members, and at-large student leaders met to consider sweeping reform to the Senate. We envision the new Senate as a small body of proven student leaders who can initiate and implement new ideas in conjunction with administrators and the ASG Cabinet. A seat on the Senate would become an honor for students who have proven their competency and commitment in other campus ventures before legislating on behalf of the entire student body. Here is how it might look:

• The Senate would contain 20 members as opposed to the current 49. Fifteen of the members would be elected each spring, and five members would be elected each fall. The fall elections would allow freshmen to vote for senators to represent their interests instead of entering campus with set representation.

• Each senator would be elected in at-large campus-wide elections. Candidates will petition for their name to be included on a ballot. Each student will have multiple votes for their preferred candidate. The top fifteen or five vote-getters will be elected Senators.

• While each elected senator would represent the whole campus, senators will choose among themselves which groups they will report to and solicit ideas from.

• This small group of leaders with the student body’s support will have an intimate enough forum to discuss issues in detail and a broad enough mandate to initiate big and exciting changes.

• This proposal is the product of much deliberation, but it is, of course, open to further amendment. We hope that you will join us for an open forum on these reforms Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Norris Lake Room.

Ben Armstrong is a Weinberg senior, The Daily’s former Public Editor and co-president of the Northwestern Political Union. He can be reached at [email protected].