As the University of Wisconsin fall semester draws near, the Associated Students of Madison is preparing for what is likely to be a busy session, with a focus on greater student involvement and recruiting.
One of ASM’s top priorities for the upcoming session will be increasing student involvement in the policymaking decisions of UW, Chair Allie Gardner said.
Along with encouraging students to participate in student organizations, Gardner said ASM hopes to increase participation in its grassroots committees, especially the Shared Governance Committee. Shared Governance appoints students to over 50 committees that provide input for policy decisions in a variety of areas.
“We do have a lot of power [as students] to make changes when we see fit, or we can at least be involved,” Gardner said. “Sometimes I think we don’t always use that to its maximum potential.”
Along with Shared Governance, ASM Vice Chair Beth Huang said the group will also encourage more students to join the University Affairs, Legislative Affairs and Diversity Committees. She said ASM will also attempt to recruit more students to its internship programs.
Gardner said another priority for the coming session is increasing student multicultural competency. She said she believes demand for this type of training has existed for some time, but groups such as the Multicultural Learning Community do not have the resources to reach all UW students.
“We’re a majorly white institution, and when we provide dialogue and discussion for issues that are faced by students of color, usually the only students involved are students of color,” Gardner said. “We want to make sure that the majority students are also benefiting from diversity education.”
Along with adding a Lakeshore location to the Multicultural Learning Community’s space in the Witte residence hall, Gardner said ASM has also discussed increasing diversity education programs for students and working more closely with diversity-centered student organizations.
Huang said the ignorance of many majority students toward minority issues is now a serious problem at UW.
“I think that one of the issues we’ve identified on this campus is not so much a lack of diversity itself but also unknown privilege,” Huang said. “We definitely have issues with marginalization of a lot of students on campus, but this can be rooted in the unknown privilege of majority students.”
Huang said ASM, along with several student organizations, will host two forums on diversity and privilege next semester intended to create policy decisions more focused on increasing multicultural education.
ASM has also considered bringing back recent graduates, especially those currently living in larger cities, in order to investigate if UW adequately prepared them for a diverse workforce environment, Huang said.
One of the other big priorities during the coming session will be finding more resources for student groups, Gardner said, especially in terms of providing proper space. She said while not all 900 student groups on campus need their own designated areas, there is not room for all of those that do in the Student Activities Center and the Red Gym.
