Student Government members want students to think of one word when their names come up — transparent.
At least that’s what Speaker of the Senate Adam Grashoff and Director of Communication Zachary Holley are working toward.
The transparency they want is to better inform the student body of what goes on during their over three-hour-long, public, weekly meetings.
Grashoff wants students to know about more than just the financial bills they pass.
“Students don’t always hear about resolutions we passed, people we appoint to senate, the ‘Thank yous’ we send to faculty and administration,” Grashoff said. “They mainly hear about the financial aspect of it — what their money is being spent on.”
Grashoff said SG did an overhaul of their bylaws and governing documents last year and found their system of communicating to students was ineffective.
To address this issue, SG Senate created Holley’s position as Director of Communication.
“We’ve tweaked that system to where instead of having someone as a liaison from exec to senate as a communications director for senate, … a current senator holds that position,” Grashoff said.
Holley has taken steps via social media to better inform students of SG Senate’s workings, including re-establishing the organization’s Twitter account and drafting generic bi-weekly updates for senators to send to their constituents on Facebook.
“If you ask students what SG has done in the past year or so, they’ll know picnic tables because that’s what has hit social media,” Holley said. “There’s a ton of stuff that goes through every week that people just don’t worry about.”
Grashoff and Holley agreed there is plenty to be gained from a more transparent SG.
But student senators always want something more from their constituents — more public input, according to Holley.
“If organizations and students knew they had these fundings they could tap into, that would help them immensely. It would also help us because we’re not just an idea factory,” Holley said. “We have our limitations, and it’s great to have input from the students to help us figure out what’s wrong because if we don’t know what’s wrong, we can’t fix it.”
Grashoff said he thinks an informed student body will lead to a more effective SG.
“SG doesn’t get the best rep because students aren’t well informed of what we’re doing and how we’re trying to do,” Grashoff said. “If they’re more knowledgeable about what we’re doing and what we’re trying to do, they can maybe help us to come up with more ideas of how to improve the university.”