The Associated Students of Madison gave a State of the ASM"" address Tuesday night to highlight its many achievements in the 2007-'08 academic year.
The address also provided an opportunity for each ASM committee to look ahead to next semester and lay out forthcoming plans.
""Our goal is to try and communicate to students what ASM is working on and how it is trying to reach out to students,"" said Karla Melara, an ASM Campus Relations intern.
Some of the more recent accomplishments came from the Diversity Committee and the Academic Affairs Committee.
On April 17, the Diversity Committee will hold its sixth annual Shadow Day, an outreach program that pairs high school students with UW-Madison students to showcase the importance of higher education through shared resources and information.
Unfortunately, diversity is an ongoing struggle at UW-Madison, ASM representatives said. Although there are plans next semester to put on a Social Justice Awareness Week, and ethnic studies requirements are looking to be altered, change will likely be slow.
""Basically the bottom line is they'd like to see a lot of change on campus, but the resources just aren't there right now,"" said Jack Gieche, a member of the Diversity Committee.
The Academic Affairs Committee is also working to improve the cost of attending UW-Madison.
This spring, ASM held its first Textbook Swap to help fight the increased costs of textbooks. The goal of the swap was to create an environment in which students could get better deals for their books than they would at the University Book Store.
""We were able to help over 400 students, and the majority of them saved about 30 percent on their textbooks,"" said Jessica Pavlic, Academic Affairs Committee chair.
Student government representatives said members of ASM Student Council next year will continue to push for changes valuable to the student body as they did this year.
