Neal Sales-Griffin, SESP senior and ASG president, spent 42 hours straight in Norris last week. NSG’s ASG can be criticized for many things, but lack of effort isn’t one of them. ASG has gone through a dramatic cultural change in the past six months, and most point to Sales-Griffin as the catalyst for that change. But has that cultural shift made ASG better at serving the students needs? After a quarter of being in office, has Sales-Griffin accomplished what he promised to do during his campaign in April 2008? Ultimately, has our president’s administration done what it is supposed to do: serve the student body?
Last spring, Sales-Griffin campaigned on the platform of “waking up Northwestern.” In his letter to North By Northwestern after his election, Sales-Griffin set down his goal of connecting ASG to the student body. “The next step is to build ASG’s capacity so that it can act on your ideas and your concerns.” Even now, Sales-Griffin still acknowledges his campaign promises. “I regularly go back and look at my platform…most of the stuff in it is either in the works or already accomplished.”
This may be true, and Sales-Griffin has followed through on effecting great internal reform. But more importantly, ASG’s real effect on the average student has been minimal at best. But no matter what changes Sales-Griffin institutes, until they noticeably affect every student, they will not be enough. NSG’s ASG still needs to prove itself. The most recent senate meeting accomplished very little—the group spent time discussing whether or not ASG should make t-shirts. This kind of internal discussion is not beneficial for the student body. Rather, it’s a step backward in the fight to look effective to the student body.
Please sir, can we have some more?
This is the biggest problem that ASG faces: a universal perception of ineffectiveness. Weinberg senior and ASG Financial Vice President Seva Rodnyansky explained that “half the time we’re not doing anything but combating that perception. It’s a never-ending game without actual services being provided.”
I asked both ASG members and average students to grade our current government on an A to F scale. Of the 16 people from ASG who replied, they gave themselves grades ranging from As to Cs, 13 of which were As or Bs. Of the 15 people I asked from outside the organization, answers ranged from A to F, with 11 grades either Cs or Ds. While this is a small sample, there is clearly a disconnect between internal and external perceptions of how successful ASG has been.
Therein lies the paradox: ASG is most effective when it has the backing of the student body but the student body will not support ASG until it proves it can be effective in a way that impacts individuals. As Hunter Atkins, Medill sophomore said, “If ASG had accomplished anything in the last year that has impacted my college life, wouldn’t I have noticed it?”
This is emblematic of another major problem — ASG does do a lot for students, but doesn’t do an effective job of letting us know that they are responsible for it. For example, NULink is run by ASG and oNe Northwestern was based out of ASG, as was NU Decides. Without effective marketing though, the ASG name remains disaffiliated from these programs and thus, those who deserve the credit for them don’t receive it, perpetuating student ambivalence and ignorance of ASG’s accomplishments.
Turn and face the strange
The first priority Sales-Griffin set when he came into office was to clean the office. “It seems like a minuscule thing, but honestly one of the biggest things in terms of having people be more collaborative was having a clean working environment,” Sales-Griffin explained. “Collaborative” is a buzz-word in Sales-Griffin’s administration; everything is about team work and the massive cleaning symbolizes that goal.
The cleaning of the office was just the first in a list of ASG’s accomplishments for the first quarter of this administration. Achievements also include the oNe Northwestern campaign, NU Decides and the newly instated Saturday intercampus shuttles. However, when asked about the biggest accomplishment of the past few months, most ASG members pointed to internal organization changes, both formal and informal.
Formally, Sales-Griffin created two new positions on the executive committee, both of which were filled in the past week. In addition, the “Rosenthal Amendment,” which requires senators to hold office hours and open forums to increase accountability was recently passed. ASG committees are now also required to submit proposals before they begin to work on any project or initiative, soliciting senate feedback and approval.
Changes in senate culture and in the mindset of the people involved were some of Sales-Griffin’s most obvious informal changes. The executive board members have felt the full force of that change according to Communication senior and Public Relation director Sasha Shaikh, who explained “every single person on executive board came in with the attitude that [change] was going to happen. We came here in full gear.”
That culture shift started with Sales-Griffin and has moved down the ranks to the senators. Patrick Dawson, Weinberg junior and two-year senator said that in during his first term, the executive board and senate operated independently, but now “it’s a lot more collaborative. The senate and the executive board are aware of what each are doing and work towards similar goals.”
So ASG is now excited, passionate, and willing to put in the effort. Sales-Griffin remarks that the “change has been realized in regards to people’s work ethic, sacrifice, drive and passion. It’s one of the most intangible things you can have in an organization but it’s one of the factors that affect productivity.”
Honey, I ignored the kids
On May 15, 2008, North by Northwesternreported that Sales-Griffin intended to effect “meteoric change” in ASG. He expressed a desire to change the fact that “nobody knows what ASG does, and most people frankly don’t even care.” He also wanted ASG “to be intuitive and welcoming to every student.” While it’s clear that ASG has changed internally, after a quarter of hard work, have students started taking notice, as promised?
Not really. Internal change seems to have come with a price. Jesse Garfinkel, Weinberg junior and previous Speaker of the Senate explained that “it’s so much easier to pass a bill changing the organization than it is to change stuff on campus…the students don’t care how we solve a problem, they just care that it gets solved.”
Former Clerk James D’Angelo, a Communications senior, attended Senate meetings regularly this quarter and was even more critical of Sales-Griffin’s bureaucratic changes. He is adamant that internal change “makes everyone feel better about doing stuff, but when it comes down to it, if ASG code is great or awful, what does that do for actual student life?”
Even executive committee members are unsure of the outward success of these inner changes. Rodnyansky admits that there is “nothing you can point to and say ‘Look! Here’s what happened!’ A lot of the legislative changes don’t necessarily impact the students as much as other things could be.”
On the bright side, the organization has more in the works for Winter Quarter and every executive board member made it clear that the upcoming quarter will be full of activity. We can be on the lookout for a winter activities fair, a Dillo Day-type event, a focus on Evanston elections and most importantly, the launch of the new and improved ASG website.
We want change
Now ASG needs to focus on the students. Enough time this year has been spent on internal struggle, reform and codification. It’s time for Sales-Griffin to do what he really promised, to bring ASG back to its priority of improving the life of the average Northwestern student by lobbying the administration on our behalf. ASG carries a lot of sway with the administration and they should use it to their advantage. With that in mind, if the student body wants something to change, they should go see ASG. One sit-down meeting can yield incredible results if we voice our discontent to the executive board instead of to one another.
ASG can and should be a great organization that brings about significant change on campus. As individuals, they are hard-working, passionate and enthusiastic about their jobs, with much of the enthusiasm originating from the president himself. But if we gauge the current ASG’s success by the amount of faith the student body has in student government and to what extent it can rally students to help accomplish change, then Sales-Griffin and his administration still have a lot of work to do. Sales-Griffin’s mantra for the year is “Expect More.” To him and to ASG, I say this: we do.