Representatives of UW–Madison student organizations met with members of the student government to discuss concerns, challenges, suggestions and future goals of their respective organizations Thursday.
Much of the town-hall-style meeting focused on the issue of communication between the Associated Students of Madison and the student organizations.
Before she was involved in ASM, Chair Allie Gardner said she had “no idea what they did besides fund work.”
Many student group representatives at the meeting said they usually only get involved with ASM when looking for funding, and do not have a strong connection to the council at all.
“A lot of students don’t trust the ASM,” said ASM Rep. Leland Pan.
According to ASM Rep. Karen Scott, the council wants to find ways to show that it is directly involved with the community and “immediately relevant to the student body.”
Members of student groups suggested ASM conduct workshops throughout the year to keep the student organizations running efficiently, make e-mails to the groups more concise and create an easily accessible online event calendar.
Several student organizations also said they didn’t have a designated meeting space and would like to have an “autonomous space” for their groups.
Later in the meeting, ASM Reps. Abby Dare and Sam Rotter from the Adventure Learning Programs proposed the idea to open a retreat center/ropes course for various student organizations from the UW-Madison community to use.
Currently, groups have to rent a local center that can be very expensive and difficult to divide equally among separate groups.
“Rather than continuing to rent [the facility] for the next 15 to 20 years, why not make an investment?” Rotter said.
The idea was well-received by the ASM members at the meeting, but no clear decision was made as to what actions would be taken regarding the retreat center.
ASM plans to hold more town hall meetings in the future to further facilitate discussions with student groups.
