In order to encourage more student involvement, ASUCD will be adding an ASUCD section to the current resident hall newsletter.
One of the platforms ASUCD Senator Amy Martin ran on was an ASUCD newsletter that would increase communication between ASUCD and the students. She aims to provide up-to-date information on what the student government is doing and how students can get involved, in layman’s terms.
“Not many random [students] go to the senate website to see what bills were passed,” she said. “I want to put [bills] in a format that everyone can understand because it might be applicable to [students], but they might not know that it’s coming through ASUCD.”
Though Martin plans to expand the newsletter to reach the entire student body, the ASUCD spotlight will be a part of the Aggie Reader, the weekly resident hall newsletter. Each week of spring quarter the spotlight will feature a summary of one of the branches of ASUCD: the executive office, ASUCD Senate, the Outreach Assembly and the seven commissions.
“The Aggie Reader would be more information about what generally happens while [Martin’s] newsletter would have up-to-date information on senate,” said Dominick Carlson, an Office of Student Development intern who compiles and edits the Aggie Reader. “They serve two different purposes.”
The ASUCD spotlight will serve as a pilot for the universitywide newsletter Martin hopes to launch in fall 2011.
“Some of the major things we’ve talked about including are upcoming events, when our units hold [events], job opportunities and when Unitrans is switching to holiday service or Bike Barn is having a sale,” she said.
The newsletter, which would only be sent to students who wish to receive it, will be institutionalized within the Outreach Assembly.
“One of the things we do is outreach to students,” said Sabrina Dias, Outreach Assembly speaker. “We want to increase transparency and provide factual information on what we do and erase discrepancies.”
Members of the Outreach Assembly and Martin’s interns will write the newsletter.
“It might be that students aren’t interested and it’s OK if [the newsletter] ends with my term,” said Martin. “But I hope it will evolve with the students.”
AKSHAYA RAMANUJAM can be reached at campus@aggie.org.
