It's your University

Hi. We are Zack and Bethany. We care about people. We want to give you, the students of the University of Idaho and paying members of ASUI a chance to have your say. We challenge you to look beyond claims – even ours. Find out who we are. Find out what Zack has voted on in ASUI as a Senator and see if you agree. Question things. Vote. This is your University.

IT’S YOUR MONEY

Do you know how much money you pay to ASUI? It’s almost $100 every year, amounting to over a million dollar budget. We want you to decide how that money is spent. It’s your money, and should be used how you want it. Our goal is that every student would understand how their money is being spent and know how they can use that money to achieve their goals. We plan to achieve this through the mass publication of expenditures in ways students can understand and through surveying students.

OUR GOAL IS YOU

We will implement campus-wide surveys each semester to let you determine how ASUI makes its decisions. An example of where allocations will likely go is to empower a diverse range of student led organizations – the backbone of ASUI. We want you to have the opportunity to find like minded students in order to pursue your interests . We’ll work hard to provide training programs and support systems for developing club leadership, membership retention, and recruitment.

TOGETHER WE’RE AN OCEAN

Through collaboration and solidarity between students and faculty of all walks of life, we’ll work with college departments to expand the programs that benefit you. One way we plan to do this is to collaborate with departments to integrate Alternative Service Break trips into their curriculum. Another is to have a representative Senate in which different colleges have voting representatives to help eliminate problems of unequal representation.

We chatted to some air tonight on Moscow’s community radio. (Not that I’m saying there aren’t thousands of people tuned into radio waves these days…)

Anyway, the point of even bringing this up is that it was interesting to hear that we were the first candidates to go in without pre-prepared sheets of paper with written platforms.

“That’s right – we truly believe in what we are saying!” we grinned to our awesome host. In fact, we couldn’t fathom taking in with us anything prepared. This goes the same with the debates on Wednesday.

Now I am not saying this to imply anything about other people who may feel the need to have a written reminder about why they are running for ASUI, or any position for that matter. (This is simply a microcosm for larger (and more corrupt) political systems.)

I’m saying this because we have a message. People are not apathetic. They are locked in a system that encourages apathy. Resident hall and off-campus students are not ‘lazy’. We have our own lives and are doing our own thing. Unless anyone encourages us otherwise, student government is something we will purposely walk around voting stations because of. Running for it is not even something we generally consider.

It is for this reason we also cannot blame any individual Greek student for partaking in a system of dominance. Just as psychologist Zimbardo proposes, human behavior can and should be attributed to the system in place, not the individuals within it.

So the fact that University of Idaho students are so disproportionately represented is not something that can be blamed on any one individual. The fact that 80% of students live in Residence halls or off-campus, yet only 3 out of 20 candidates running for student body are from this demographic, is not any one’s ‘fault’. The system simply favors a certain group, and power is self perpetuating.

We are not powerless against systems, however. We, together as human beings, create, break and rebuild them. And it begins by talking about it.

Why on earth do students run for student government positions?

Over the past few days I have been asked a few times “So, you’re a PoliSci major right?”. I’ve never been asked this question before.

This is not a game.

I’m in this because I care about students. I’m not trying to prove anything. I’d rather not be elected and yet see the positive changes we want to create happen, than be in a position of power yet not able to help people.

Motive leads to action. In light of the honesty and “transparency,” I will continue to uphold, here is my honest position. Zack and I are the only people running to represent students that are not led by students of Political Science. I study Anthropology because I care about human beings. My focus is on trans-national and displaced people groups in border communities, in particular in western Africa.

I plan on going to graduate school for applied cultural Anthropology. It is a research program, and students are judged on merit of academic research ability. A student leadership position at University of Idaho would have no relevance to them. They are more likely to care about the conference I am presenting at in a few weeks in New York – the very conference that I am having to sacrifice preparation time for in order to give some time to this election. A top political science graduate school program however almost requires student body leadership experiece. 

But why then, would I do this thing?

Well, I think of my dear friends at the U of I from Germany, Spain, the UK and Brazil. They do not know what ASUI is. But they pay more than any of us.

I think of my wonderful guy mates from the middle of nowhere in Montana (sorry!). When I ask them what ASUI does for them they look at me quizzically and laugh.

I think of all the crazy Chrisman hall friends I lived with my first year, and the perhaps crazier musicians of Targhee hall that shared so much laughter together. They never think to run for ASUI leadership. They are out hiking, traveling, acting and partying. ASUI to them is the niche of Greek students. And besides, if they were to run, they know how difficult it would be to be elected.

I am not a politician. This is not a game. I intentionally veered away from that bureaucratic stuff as I saw the reality in peoples individual, social lives. This was especially in developing nations I have spent time in – seeing their reality as as being so far removed and irrelevant from policymakers ‘up there’.

We are real people. It’s real money we have to spend on this stuff. It’s my friends money, and their university experience. We’re not playing politics, for this is no game. 

I just had the most wonderful experience at India night, dancing and eating incredible Indian food. There were hundred of people there – hundreds. The SUB ballroom was so full people were standing. 

The people have spoken. This sort of thing is what they want. We want celebration, color and culture. This is what a University should be about. Do you want more of your student funds to go to supporting these hardworking people in putting on educational celebrations that the whole community loves? 

I attended the first half of a “Stop the Hate” conference at the University of Idaho today. The premise was great: An open discussion and education on bias incidents and hate crimes, what they are and what is done about them. It was a supportive environment of any and all considered minority groups, and was an example of some of the great
things a University can do with student funds.

Did you know this was going on?

A further focus on creative and integrated ways of disseminating information and encouraging participation is needed.  The idea was great. But most of the students in attendance was from either ASUI or GSA. In fact, it was mandated for ASUI executive branches to attend. I will be honest and say that I only knew about it because Zack told me about it. None of my friends knew about it. Thus, none of my friends were invited to hear this valuable information and join in the delicious free (funded) lunch.

One could say that because the announcement was in fact, nestled amongst our flooded inboxes, that it was the choice of all students not to attend. But with all due respect for your reading ability, did you read it?

Please don’t get me wrong, I wholly agree with the idea(s) of this conference. I am grateful to everyone who worked hard to put it on. But it’s another example of one of these student-funded, ‘public’ events that are being attended in large part by students already in the know. The rest of us miss out. Whether it be student disinterest or failure of advertising, it shows, again, that a new approach needs to be taken in dissemination of information and questions to the student broader student body.

An example of this is integrating the program into curriculum or as an interactive requirement of classes. And I don’t just mean sociology classes, I mean bringing marketing students to it and having marketing professors take workshops on how to promote the issues. Seeing journalism students attend and having them learn about how to avoid bias in their writing in the afternoon sessions. Etcetera. This is framing it in terms of students interests- it goes toward receiving credit and applies directly to benefit them. This is something I’ve been doing to some degree at the Sustainability center over the past year and see place for further departmental and academic integration with ‘extra-curricular’ events. This goes the same with receiving credit for Alternative Service Breaks.

There are also ways to intentionally time things better to suit the average college student, such as hosting an evening instead of not all Saturday (it’s not their fault for the beautiful weather outside though!). There are ways to make conferences such as this productive such as having an outcome of the conference. If students are going to come out of the conference with something tangible: a letter to a senator, a song, a piece of art on the theme to be displayed in the reflections gallery or a plan for how they are going to ‘stop the hate’ in their own life, the event can be advertised as such and promoted to various classes and departments with varying interests.

Lets get together and come up with new ideas and creative, meaningful ways to get students involved. We have a great base and programs but must continue to grow and build upon them in order to help both the programs and the students.

Enough for now

OK, here we go. Zack and I are running for ASUI President and Vice President this year, and we can’t do it without you. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll tell you why.

Why are we not simply putting smiling pictures up around campus and telling you to vote for us? Well, suits make us itch.

Just joking. They certainly have thier place. Anyway, it’s because you are intelligent college students, and deserve to be informed. You deserve to have diverse leaders. You deserve to know what ASUI is, what you can do as a member (yes, all students are members) and where your one million dollars each year is going.

So we’re not just going to preach transparency, or smile for cameras (although we promise we will). We are going to keep everyone informed about what is going on every step of the way. We are going to tell you exactly why we are running, and exactly what we will do as student representatives. We will, from now, create an open forum for all students – ask us any questions, and we promise to answer as best we can.

We’re just ordinary students, trying to represent as best we can the voice of all students. So here’s to all of us. Happy beginnings.