Attendance at Student Union meetings has declined since the start of the semester, making it difficult for attending members to accomplish the goals set out by the new executive board, Union members said.
Low attendance forced some committees to cancel their most recent weekly meetings, while other committees met with fewer than half of their members, committee chairpersons said.
‘I think the Union has to realize they’re not dealing with people who have been part of this and who know the routine,’ former College of General Studies voting representative Jane Satarov said. ‘They need to talk to students and emphasize that they need to go to committee meetings.’
Mandating attendance at the committee meetings for voting representatives could deter people from attending even more, Satarov, a CGS sophomore, said.
‘It’s like having a job,’ Satarov said. ‘People start to lose the passion. They have to want to go, you can’t make them go.’
The last General Assembly meeting only drew about half the number of attendees that the first GA meeting did.
Though the executive board has been working diligently on its new goals for the semester, its failure to maintain a high attendance will make it almost impossible to ‘get things done,’ second-year CGS voting representative Adam Korn said.
‘I think this year has been less successful as far at attendance at committee meetings, because there is no sense of friendship in the Union,’ Korn, a CGS sophomore, said. ‘It’s all work being thrown at you and no fun.’
As a voting representative for the Union, Korn is required to sign up for one of the Union’s six committees, small groups of five to 10 students who direct their attention to general areas like academic affairs and campus safety.
‘It’s not easy for some people to be in these committees when people are just throwing work at you,’ Korn, who is a member of the Academic Affairs Committee, said. ‘If there’s no sense of friendship, then it’s hard for people to feel loyalty to an organization.’
Though the committee leaders admit to a decline in attendance, they said they do not think it will not keep them from achieving their goals.
‘I’ve come to realize that attendance isn’t everything,’ Campus Safety Committee Chairman Leo Gameng, a College of Arts and Sciences senior, said. ‘We have between three to six dedicated people in our committee, and they’re the ones who oil the wheels and get the committee going.’
Union President Matt Seidel said that in his past experience in the Union, attendance has always been a problem, but he and the rest of the executive board are working on projects to help bolster student involvement.
‘You’re always going to have those point people who are really dedicated to their projects, but sometimes the people who help them get caught up with exams and papers, and it’s easy for them to fall by the wayside,’ Seidel, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, said.
The Union website features a calendar of upcoming meetings, but university and Student Activities Office calendars make no mention of Union events.
To try to increase attendance, Seidel said the Union has given each committee chairperson a page on the Union website and $60 to spend on advertising and is trying to gain a bigger presence at the George Sherman Union.
‘Union shouldn’t just be this group of involved individuals,’ Seidel said. ‘It should really be as many people as want to get involved.’
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A paragraph apart, very different phrasings of the same quotation. Editors? Author? Accountability?<br/>—<p/>“I think this year has been less successful as far at attendance at committee meetings, because there is no sense of friendship in the Union,” Korn, a CGS sophomore, said. “It’s all work being thrown at you and no fun.”<p/>As a voting representative for the Union, Korn is required to sign up for one of the Union’s six committees, small groups of five to 10 students who direct their attention to general areas like academic affairs and campus safety.<p/>“It’s not easy for some people to be in these committees when people are just throwing work at you,” Korn, who is a member of the Academic Affairs Committee, said. “If there’s no sense of friendship, then it’s hard for people to feel loyalty to an organization.”