Somewhere on the third floor of the Norris University Center, students are planning “some significant changes to the organizational structure” of Associated Student Government.
Since an ad hoc committee issued a proposal earlier this week advocating the replacement of ASG with a different system of student government called Students, Incorporated, ASG President Neal Sales-Griffin has been working on a proposal that is “a little less radical.”
One introduction already under way is the creation an organizational chart for ASG, something that ASG has never had, according to Sales-Griffin. Actually putting down on paper the hierarchy of the student government helped the executive board to formulate their own reform proposal.
“When we created that organizational chart, we actually saw where the gaps were, and we saw where the holes were in the organization.” Sales-Griffin said. “We started including things and adding things and moving things around and defining what the relationship was.”
The SESP junior said the organizational chart should be polished by this weekend, while his proposal should be finalized over the next week.
The original proposal, created in part by Weinberg freshman and North by Northwestern staffer Ben Armstrong, said that the current system would not support the necessary reforms.
“Members of ASG are bound to an antiquated protocol that focuses on internal, oligarchic negotiation. They work within the system without questioning the functions that it should be serving,” the proposal reads. “Northwestern students need more than ‘internal reforms’ to the current system; they need a new system.”
Sales-Griffin plans to incorporate both the proposal and the current ASG system.
“On my end, our changes are a little less radical,” Sales-Griffin added. “It wouldn’t be a massive overhaul of ASG, but it would be some significant changes to the organizational structure.”
One possibility is a reform board, which the original proposal described as “constantly evaluating” what could be improved or changed. The idea made a big impression on ASG’s executive board, and is also integrated in the other reform proposition currently in the works, Sales-Griffin said.
A forum on the issue should take place soon, Sales-Griffin said, to get student input and raise awareness on campus of the significant changes that might take place in ASG.
Executive Vice President Vikram Karandikar said Wednesday that big changes could take time to be implemented.
“Neal is very invested in bringing change to ASG and to how ASG approaches students… but nothing is set in stone at this moment. There are talks of making changes but whatever changes these end up being, there has to be a consensus of where this organization needs to go,” he said.