The Associated Students of the University Utah is ramping up for this spring’s elections, and that means going over all the elections rules.
One of these rules restricts potential campaigns from contacting students whom they do not already know and asking them to work on or be a part of their campaign.
Many in ASUU have expressed frustration with this rule, saying that it makes it too difficult for them to recruit people to their campaigns. Yet this could be a fantastic opportunity for ASUU to open itself up to the rest of campus.
Rather than forcing individual campaigns to recruit fresh blood to ASUU, why don’t the current, non-campaigning members of the administration work on recruiting students to be in ASUU, regardless of the party? That way, every campaign would have a pool of potential candidates legally recruited in a non-partisan manner.
Sure, there are “Elections are coming” ads around campus, but does the average student know that he or she is more than welcome to walk into ASUU and find out about running for an Assembly or Senate position?
The fact is that ASUU is more of a social club than a real student government. When it comes time for elections, people who already work in ASUU prepare to run, and they ask their friends to run with them-regardless of their actual qualifications. Although they may complain that they can’t ask students other than those whom they know due to campaign restrictions, they could widen their pool by working harder to attract students to ASUU in general, not just to individual campaigns.
ASUU needs to open itself up and get rid of the “good old boy” mentality. Just because people have attended some meetings for a board doesn’t mean that they’re good at their classes or that they know anything about their college. An established member of ASUU is not necessarily a better candidate than someone who is more involved with the constituents he or she would represent.
Shouldn’t an Assembly or Senate representative be more involved in his or her department than in ASUU itself?
But the job isn’t entirely up to ASUU. Students who want to make a difference at the U, and in their college in particular, need to approach ASUU about running for office.
Logically, some of the best candidates are probably involved in other avenues of campus life-student advisory committees, for example. ASUU outsiders, such as student leaders in the Bennion Center and the LDS Institute of Religion, could be far more qualified than someone who just happened to join Freshman Council a few years ago.
Instead of whining about these rules, ASUU’s prospective candidates should take advantage of this opportunity to broaden the scope of the typical party candidate-and thereby create a better, more representative student government at the U.