Your editorial last Wednesday on the Association of Student Governments ("Making Change") inaccurately and unfairly casts aspersions on an organization that has worked very effectively for students over the last decade. All the while, ASG has done a lot with very little resources.
It's a pretty specious argument to question ASG's effectiveness. In 1999, Hurricane Floyd rocked the citizens of eastern North Carolina, including students at East Carolina University, a constituent UNC-system institution. ASG spearheaded a fund-raising campaign that yielded over $110,000 for the ECU Family Relief Fund. ASG, a "detriment to the students of the UNC-system"?
In 2000, ASG lobbied the UNC-system Board of Governors to amend a committee recommendation for a $600 tuition increase down to $200. Though this would have been unprecedented in board history, ASG came within three votes of doing just that. "Ineffectual"?
In 2001, ASG led over 5,000 students in a march to the capitol in protest of severe university budget cuts, which were eventually scaled back. "Disorganized"?
Since 1991, the ASG president has served as a nonvoting, ex-officio member of the BOG. And the presidents' adroitness in that position has been recognized by the BOG and the N.C. House, as each body has voted overwhelmingly in support of granting voting rights to that seat.
If ASG does have some minimal weaknesses in infrastructure, they're pretty understandable, considering it's been run on a budget equivalent to about 2 cents a student. That's comparable to UNC-CH's student government getting by on a $600 budget. One dollar per student is a fraction of what students pay at each UNC campus to their institutional student governments.
Finally, the editorial board seems to employ some circular logic here. It cites a few situations in which participation in ASG events fell short of expectations, yet dismisses student leaders' concerns over travel costs as "gripes." The distance between the two outermost UNC-system institutions, Western Carolina University and Elizabeth City State University, is equal to the distance between Elizabeth City and New York City. Traversing the state to effectively represent students at the state level costs money.
The admonition that ASG owes it to the students to be especially prudent and accountable now that the association is properly funded is a very fair point. However, in the future, we hope the editorial board will check its facts a little better before it insinuates that ASG has done nothing.
Government in any form, including student government, is an instrument of collective will and resources. The nature of our 16-campus university, the common challenges, the threat to affordability and access and the need for a strong voice are all reasons to support a vibrant and healthy statewide student representative organization. Students have gotten a lot of good for their $0.02, and they will get even more for their $1.
