Dear Student Body,

As we begin to finalize our schedules and select the best way to maneuver campus construction from Grainger to Van Hise, the leadership of your student government — the Associated Students of Madison — welcome you as the summer comes to a close. Student leaders have been extremely active working on behalf of you, the students, and we would like to take this opportunity to share our progress and our goals for the upcoming year.

One of our primary efforts focuses on affordability of higher education. Currently, three ASM student appointees advise the chancellor on the recently created Madison Initiative for Undergraduates, Chancellor Biddy Martin’s plan for tuition spending and costs.

Furthermore, we are developing multiple avenues to reduce the cost of textbooks. Students across the university, from those taking Spanish 101 to Economics 302, continue to endure the burden of rising textbook costs. To alleviate this burden, we recently implemented our fourth semester textbook exchange program. Last year we saved students more than $10,000 through this program and we are awaiting final numbers for this year.

We are also unveiling a new service for class scheduling and comparative textbook price shopping called Semesterly.com. We have worked with two Harvard alumni to provide a free, convenient one-stop online shop for scheduling classes and purchasing textbooks at the lowest possible cost. The beauty of this site is Facebook-powered social connectivity, allowing students to learn from their Facebook friends when selecting classes and bargain hunting for textbooks.

These efforts for lower textbook costs, among a variety of our other services, emanate from the ASM offices located within the Student Activity Center at 333 East Campus Mall. The SAC, a student government-led project, opened last January after 13 years of student innovation and planning, in conjunction with dozens of other campus units including University Health Services, the Office of the Registrar and the Bursar’s Office.

On the third and fourth floors of the SAC, 90,000 square feet of student-run space provide a home for more than 60 student organizations, such as the Greater University Tutorial Service, WSUM Student Radio and the MultiCultural Student Coalition. The space also features an abundance of study space, meeting rooms and an outdoor rooftop garden. This building has been featured as a one-of-its kind complex in the Wall Street Journal and was named InBusiness Magazine’s 2009 Project of the Year.

On Sept. 16, ASM will host its annual fall kickoff at the SAC, and we encourage you to stop by, learn more about your student government and check out the space for yourself.

This year, ASM will utilize new strategies to solicit your input on university governance decisions and inform you of ASM’s initiatives throughout the year. Through an innovative, comprehensive approach incorporating traditional and online media and social networking resources, we hope to serve as an effective conduit between you and university administrators.

Through ASM’s outreach strategy and coordinated grassroots efforts, we will amplify the student voice to ensure student perspectives are represented at both the university and state level.

If you are interested in learning more about us and the student government on campus, you can visit our website, www.asm.wisc.edu, follow us on Twitter at Twitter.com/asmstudentgovt and join our Associated Students of Madison Facebook group.

We are excited to get underway on our current initiatives, but we ask you to assist us in these endeavors. Students are empowered by state statute to play a significant role in the university decision-making process. Similar to an academic discussion section, the student government needs active participation in order to thrive. Your government is led by capitol staffers, dining hall supervisors, fraternity brothers, sorority sisters, student organization leaders, SOAR assistants, dorm residents and students not unlike yourselves.

We ask you to sign our petitions, vote in our elections, contact your elected representatives, volunteer in our campaigns, bring forth new ideas and be vocal about issues you care about. Your active participation in this process will help to ensure the accountability of your representatives and allow us to more effectively address student concerns across campus. Please take the time to visit us in our office on the fourth floor of the SAC. We hope to see you around campus.

Tyler Junger, Tom Templeton and Kurt Gosselin are, respectively, the president, vice president and secretary of ASM Student Council.