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ASM bylaw to clarify press office role
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The Associated Students of Madison Student Council passed a bylaw Wednesday that would more clearly establish the role of its recently established press office.
Student Council had already approved a bylaw last May that created the ASM Press Office, formerly known as the Campus Relations Committee. According to ASM Chair Brittany Wiegand, however, the old bylaw contained no clear job descriptions or goals, which made it hard for ASM to delegate what exactly the press office should be doing.
Wiegand said ASM had already hired two people for the press office jobs last spring but now that the new bylaw is passed, they are opening the positions back up to anyone who wants to apply.
“We found out we did it all backwards before,” Wiegand said. “The positions now are going to provide more accountability and, hopefully, better public relations.”
As described in the bylaw, the Press Office will have three University of Wisconsin students as paid staff who will handle all ASM media relations, including press releases, website maintenance and press conferences.
The salaries for the press office staff will be mostly funded from unused stipends from ASM’s internal budget.
In addition to the press office bylaw, the Student Council approved redesigning ASM’s logo. The current logo is a picture of a chain breaking, and many SC members expressed dissatisfaction with the image it portrays.
Student Services Finance Committee Chair Kurt Gosselin said ASM needs a new look because it has failed in the eyes of many students. Gosselin said a new logo will help get ASM out of the “cesspool of negativity,” he sees them in.
Chris Skaros, another member of the council, agreed with Gosselin and added ASM’s logo of chains is not the right look for UW’s student government.
“I think this is the perfect opportunity for ASM to re-brand itself as an organization, especially with all the other changes we’re going through,” Skaros said.
According to the resolution, the new logo will be released at the Student Activity Center party in January.
SC also voted to approve a new bylaw that would outline procedures needed for SC to hold a special election.
Wiegand said previous ASM bylaws allowed for special elections, but they failed to provide provisions for procedures. According to Wiegand, SC passed the new bylaw for an election it will be holding in February to create a new constitution.
“It’s going to be a whole overhaul,” Wiegand said.
Additionally, UW student Kevin Ott was appointed as the new legislative affairs chair for SC, a position that has not been filled since last May.
Ott said he wants to focus on more local issues regarding Dane County, but more specifically Madison. He said several city districts are composed almost entirely of students, so part of his future plans are to mobilize more students to lobby legislators and get their voices heard.
“Even if you go home in the summer, you’re living here eight, nine months a year,” Ott said. “You should have a say in what happens in your home.”
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First off, congratulations to ASM for reaffirming their dedication to an antiquated machine-based moveable type and ink method of disseminating news, which, as we all know, best represents the plethora of new media before us. STOP THE PRESSES! I mean, NO, DON’T EVER STOP THE PRESSES!
Not just that, though, I for one am glad that ASM will have three paid staffers to coordinate their message, as opposed to one, who might end up arguing with him or herself and releasing mixed messages to our local media outlets. Having three people at the helm totally minimizes the chances of that happening.
And finally - bravo for taking on that logo. I can’t believe that after all these years, we can’t get a shiny wet floor reflection or maybe a Microsoft Clippy-style anthropomorphization of those chain links. This is and should be a major priority for ASM. Bill Hicks would be rolling over in his grave if he knew how little time ASM has spent on aesthetic marketing and re-branding as opposed to actual outreach and networking. - Germain Q. Stemme
Germain,
What has your experience been with ASM? Are you aware of the structure of the new press office? Currently, committee chairs do their own press (not this one person that you reference), but the structure of the press office is set up to prevent mixed messaging. As everything will be overseen by the press office director, all of ASM’s media efforts will be far more coordinated in the past.
Furthermore, our re-branding is part of a larger effort to reach out to campus. This small logo re-design is part of a bigger effort to become an organization that is pro-active on campus and responsive to the students. Our logo redesign is a way for us to be a recognizable entity for students on campus.
Since you seem interested in ASM, I would love to sit down with you sometime in order to clarify our work so that you have an understanding of what we do.
Come up with your own blogging alias!!!
how many Germain Stemme’s can there be?!?!
-Germain Z. Stemme