Enrollment soaring over the past four years has inspired demand for a student government at ASU East.
The 7-year-old campus has never had a central organization governing the student body, and now with 3,126 students, the need is higher than ever.
"Campus issues and growth are creating more compelling student issues," said Mike Mader, director of student activities at East campus. "Students are responding by wanting to create a government structure so that they can more effectively get feedback from administration."
After several failed attempts, this is the first time that their words have finally forced actions.
"I think it's important for our campus to have its own dually elected officers that communicate with presidents and officers at the other campuses," he said.
The two other campuses, Main and West, have established student governments and because of that Mader said he will go to them for help in the future.
"We want to be able to collaborate, cooperate and integrate with the two other government bodies," Mader said. "We will operate in similar fashion and will eventually seek more advice and assistance from them. However, our government will be its own structure and will focus on our needs and what we need out here."
The idea came about after 12 students expressed their interest in formulating a new student government.
One of these students, professional golf management sophomore Jeremy Art, said he felt that the student body had missed opportunities after seeing no unifying organization for all clubs and organizations.
"[East] really needs a forum for student views and interests," he said.
Angela Heller, an education graduate student, said East campus needs to provide students a better way to voice concerns.
"We need to be able to discuss important parts of this campus," Heller said. "Diplomatically, we can solve some problems."
Heller said current student concerns that she foresees being issues dealt with by the new student government are tuition increase, lack of class selection and concerns with teachers.
So far, the students have met three times to discuss how to begin putting all the pieces of this government into place.
One of the first plans they are working on is a constitution, which will provide guidelines on how the government would function.
The group will begin a draft of the constitution in spring 2003 and hold elections later that semester. Because they are still in the early phases of development, there are still many issues on the board, such as funding.
Mader added that there are 27 registered clubs that can request funding from a student organization account. They will discuss whether or not the student government would be in charge of this account.
Mader said the students involved in planning would like to see elected officials in place next fall, but there is currently no suggestion as to how many executive officers there will be.
Reach the reporter at jennifer.summers@asu.edu.
