No one has asked us to write this. The purpose of this letter is not to sway your vote, but to share our thoughts. Hopefully this letter will give a little insight into our experiences with Claire over the past three years.
Who we are
We were fortunate enough to serve as the past two student body presidents at Northwestern. We both have a driving passion for working on behalf of others and improving the quality of life for students at Northwestern. Even though we love Northwestern, we know that there are areas that need to be improved.
Our story with Claire
Before her first week of classes were over, Claire had already won a position as Allison Hall ASG senator. In that role, she pushed for more accountability by requiring senators to send out weekly emails to their constituents. As a member of the ASG Academic Committee, Claire helped lobby for wireless in dorms — yes there was a time when we didn’t have wireless in dorms — and created the idea for an academic advising fair that has provided hundreds of students with opportunities to get one-on-one help with advisers from all six undergraduate schools.
As a member of the ISBE Leadership Initiative — where she worked directly with Neal who was President at the time — she learned the struggles of student leaders and developed solutions to improve student groups at Northwestern. By Spring Quarter, Claire had successfully run Neal’s campaign for ASG President and in her spare time became ASG Treasurer. As treasurer, she went out of her way to work with Neal to implement a number of ASG reforms including: creating the position of Vice President, writing a simplified ASG operations manual, and implementing committee applications to get passionate students on all ASG committees.
Did we mention that this was just her freshman year?
During the rest of her time at Northwestern, Claire has been able to start the oNe Northwestern initiative that has engaged over 2,000 students in a dialogue about our Northwestern experience. She has worked with us to bring over 200 Chicago public school students to Northwestern to get a taste of the college experience. Claire also worked with us on Schapiro’s Inaugural committee to bring A&O on board to produce the John Legend concert that over 4,000 students attended and still talk about to this day.
As VP of Public Relations, Claire has made ASG more transparent by creating quarterly and annual reports to the student body, as well as working with Student Affairs to send out a quarterly email to all 8,000+ undergraduate students. She is currently redesigning NULink, which will radically change how students’ view and access vital information.
These results only begin to demonstrate Claire’s contribution to the Northwestern community. It’s important to note the countless nights we spent in the ASG office because SafeRide had stopped operating and we just had too much work to do to leave. We can’t even count the number of times we’ve spent watching the sun rise with Claire as we typed away on our computers in the ASG office. Claire has never stopped pushing both of us to be better at what we do, not only in our positions, but as people.
We’ve seen her as a true force in ASG, on the executive board she has never been afraid to disagree and stand for what she believes. In weekly meetings with the Vice President of Student Affairs – the man whose job is to serve the undergraduate NU community – and quarterly meetings with the Board of Trustees she has held true and firm on her responsibility to represent Northwestern students. We reckon they take what she has to say very seriously and with high esteem.
ASG then, now, and going forward:
Our goal as the former and outgoing ASG President is to make sure that ASG will be better year after year. One important ingredient to improving ASG every year is having an understanding of how ASG works. For the past few years, we take comfort in knowing that ASG has had positive outcomes from lobbying and working with the administration to improve the quality of student life at NU. ASG was able to successfully secure and fund a weekend shuttle, shuttle GPS, and redesign the Campus and Evanston Loop. We have also improved wireless, mobile technology, alcohol policy, sustainability, academic advising, and student group funding to name a few.
ASG has also stressed collaboration with other students and student groups to get things done, and the past few years have been glowing examples of that. Greek organizations successfully lobbied to improve Freshman Freeze policies. SEED is working with senior administrators to fill the sustainability coordinator position. Rainbow Alliance successfully lobbied for an Open Housing pilot program. Multicultural student groups formed the “Coalition of Colors” to radically change the direction of MSA and created a police advisory board; and recently, the Living Wage Campaign was able to achieve a historic victory by getting community benefits for subcontracted workers.
What this demonstrates is ASG’s existing ability to work with administrators to improve NU as well as student groups’ capacity to work directly with administrators to make change happen on campus.
Claire understands this because she has played an active role in making it happen. She crafted legislation to make ASG more effective and efficient. She labored for hours on end crafting the New Student Center Proposal that was unveiled last quarter. And she presented feedback on the Student Affairs’ Five-Year Strategic Plan to senior administrators.
Claire has made it her purpose and passion to serve and support the Northwestern student body. She exemplifies the idea that we are oNe Northwestern, a community of unique and eclectic people. She has inspired us to believe that through hard work, we can create a better experience at Northwestern year after year.
Sincerely,
Michael McGee, Outgoing ASG President, former ASG Academic Vice President
Neal Sales-Griffin, SESP 09’ former President of ASG, ISBE, and Ayers CCI