Last school year was a rough one for ASM. The year before that was rough, too. And the year before that was, well, you get the picture. After each ineffective year, there is always a sense of renewed hope that the latest reform-minded ASM leadership group will be the one to return the organization to relevance.
ASM’s recent Move-Out Night sleepover in mid-August shows that perhaps this year’s crew of student government leaders is going to be the one that starts to give UW-Madison a little less talking and a lot more action.
It is safe to venture that many folks blame ASM’s well-documented troubles on its members acting too much like ineffective politicians who talk a good game but do not actually get anything done. This is true to a point, but in some ways, ASM would be more successful if its members acted more like politicians.
The general American opinion about politicians can be summed up by a terse, “Throw the bums out!” However, when Americans are asked about their own congressman, their tune changes to “I heart my representative.” This creates a bizarre situation where congressional approval is lower than Bill Hall’s batting average, yet the reelection rate for incumbents is near 90 percent.
Part of this twisted reality is, while Congress sucks at passing meaningful federal legislation, its individual members are pretty all right at A) taking care of constituents in their home districts and B) letting constituents know they are being taken care of. The constituent service offices congressmen maintain in their home districts do a lot of this. These offices get things fixed, make the right phone calls and generally do things to handle the concerns of impressionable voters.
The hope for this year’s ASM leadership stems from the fact that the yearly cries for Bret Bielema’s head have not even started yet and they have already shown that they might have a good grasp on the importance of showing their constituents some love.
ASM’s first big idea was the Move-Out Night shindig held the night of Aug. 14 at the Student Activities Center. Move-out time has been the bane of college students’ existence since forever, and usually the only options available are to pay extra money or be left without a home for a night. Since ASM might not have the political capital to force landlords to change their lease policies, it settled for opening the doors of the SAC to give student vagabonds a place to crash for the night.
Even the most ardent ASM-hater cannot help but say, “That’s a swell idea!” More importantly, even though turnout for the night was modest, it shows ASM can actually come up with ideas that address irksome problems faced by students.
College students are at least as fickle as regular voters, so the campuswide indifference toward ASM could be a result of too much time forming committees and not enough time getting ‘er done in the constituent service department. Events such as Move-Out Night are a great place to start, and if ASM is able to expand its constituent services, how would students be able to complain if they can make a call and have Tyler Junger show up to handle an unruly neighbor?
Once the constituents have been provided with their services, the second part of being a good politician is letting them know what you have done for them. College students love talking about themselves, so it should not be difficult for ASM to talk about itself and what it has done for students.
One place to start is the ASM website. ASM is known for being all hat and no cattle, yet its home page focuses on advocating for issues and volunteering for committees. These ASM functions are obviously important, but prominently displaying them helps reinforce students’ negative perceptions of the organization’s ineffectiveness.
Wouldn’t that space be better used if it featured stories proclaiming, “Ahem, we’re hooking you up with bus passes!” and “Move-out day sucks … Move-Out Night doesn’t”? ASM’s website is only one part of its overall operation, but it could be a good place to start to adopt that politician’s mindset of self-promotion. I also would not be opposed to implementing the Bush-era practice of paying columnists to sweet talk ASM.There is reason to believe the 2009-10 school year will be different for ASM. After all, any organization associated with a Wrigley-Field is cleared destined for success. The Move-Out Night sleepover was a peachy idea, and it showed that developing a politician’s knack for providing relevant services to students is one way ASM can turn a few heads and begin to return to relevance on the UW-Madison campus.
Zachary Schuster ([email protected]) is a graduate student studying water resources engineering and water resources management.
