The Associated Student of Madison’s Disc(us)sion 2009 forum held Wednesday gave students the opportunity to voice ideas and concerns about the University of Wisconsin’s student government.

Attended by approximately 30 students, the meeting targeted the 15 largest registered student organizations, including the Working Class Student Union, Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group and the Wisconsin Student Lobby.

The meeting began with ASM Vice Chair Hannah Karns presenting a basic overview of the student government’s committees and explaining the workings of the funding stream. The students that attended were then broken up into groups to discuss a series of questions provided by ASM.

The topics discussed included defining an ideal student body, addressing student issues and strategizing better communication between ASM and the general student population.

In each group, a member of ASM and an ASM press liaison were present to lead the dialogue and hear feedback.

“This is an example of a town hall meeting which Student Council is required to have every semester,” Karns said. “This is really to provide an example of what a successful town hall meeting should look like in terms of having an open forum, no agenda and just really soliciting student opinion.”

The feedback gathered at the forum will be compiled and categorized for the next session of ASM, Karns said.

ASM nominations board member Mary Collins said the council’s biggest challenge was to get students to see the relevance of ASM in their everyday lives. She added it was difficult for students to grasp the ideological change the new constitution would have made within ASM.

Tony Uhl, chair of the UW chapter of WISPIRG, said ASM must reorganize its structure and goals, adding they need to appeal to student emotion and logic.

“ASM is now on the students’ minds because of the failed constitution, and they’ve got to utilize that,” Uhl said. “Reach out to everyone, then strategically focus your efforts for something specific to advance your cause.”

Tyler Hawks, a current candidate for the Student Council Letters and Science representative, said he agreed with Uhl.

“ASM needs to figure its own business out — there are a lot of inefficiencies in its structure that prevent it from reaching out to freshman (and) prevent it from tackling a campaign,” Hawks said.

In addition, he said this type of forum should be mandatory for each session since new ASM members take office every year, adding a student body that does not consistently ask for student input will miss out on a variety of bright ideas.

Karns said she was pleased with the forum’s dialogue and the diverse group of students that attended.

“Even with the diverse opinions represented, there was just a general feeling of collaboration,” Karns said. “Student groups who don’t normally interact came together to help identify campus issues and improve the student government, simply because they care — they care, and ASM cares.”