The recently elected Associated Students of NMU (ASNMU) administration has made becoming more connected to students a priority, an effort that those involved feel has been lacking in the past. Projects such as the MarqTran and the bike initiative are priorities for the group, but ultimately they hope to make students more aware of their presence as a resource.
“The message I tried to get out to students, even in the campaign and as president now, is just that I’m here if you need anything,” said Jason Morgan, junior political science major and recently elected ASNMU president. “I’m here for students. Not just me but the representatives as well.”
The new board has been seated one week and Morgan said the hardest part about being president is finding a balance between the administration and students. He said he feels his priority is for the students and intends to stick by that throughout the year.
“I hope to have a very strong and positive relationship with administration, but I hope that they will understand that my job is to look out for students first,” Morgan said.
Morgan said his main goals in ASNMU for the fall are improving the Wildcat Shuttle through campus and the Marquette community, exploring the possibility of the bike share program and expanding the lounge hours in Temaki and Tea and in the LRC.
Morgan has worked with the Wildcat Shuttle for the past year to improve the schedule. He said he hopes to further this work by making the bus more accessible for students by improving the Marquette schedule and possibly extending the hours longer in the day.
Morgan will explore the bike-share program so that it will either be ready for the fall or at least ASNMU will know what obstacles need to be tackled in order to implement it in the future. Similarly, Morgan wants to look into extending the hours in the study lounges, but he doesn’t know what the response will be.
He said the most complicated aspect of these projects is finding out who he needs to speak to make this possible. He plans to spend much of the summer speaking to administration and departments across campus to make such relationships more secure next fall.
“I’m figuring out a lot of different avenues I have to go through,” Morgan said.
Josh Corbat, ASNMU Vice President and junior secondary education, integrated science major, said that he feels that the board will work well together this year. During his campaign, Corbat said that a goal of his would be to improve communication amongst board members, but he is impressed with the new board and believes representatives will be more efficient this year.
“I think you’re going to start seeing results much more quickly than in past years. And that’s really exciting,” he said.
Corbat is working with the appointments committee to prepare for appointing people to the board next fall. He has redesigned the application to request references of potential representatives, and they are discussing how to make the interview process more professional. Corbat is also looking at sustainable purchasing, which is assessing purchases that ASNMU and the university as a whole make to assure that everything is not only environmentally friendly, but also economical.
Corbat said he hopes that such efficiency will change the impression that much of campus has of ASNMU.
“We need to reverse the stigma that ASNMU is this outside force, that we are just an organization that is self-promoting and does things to look good,” Corbat said. “We need to show the campus that we’re here to help them . and that we’re not doing it for our own gain.”
Morgan said that this new image of ASNMU will only be achieved if students are aware of ASNMU’s presence, so that is what Morgan believes is most important to pursue.
“There’s really never an opportunity to just sit back and say, I don’t care about something. . I have to care about everything because students care about things,” Morgan said. “I want to care about what they care about too to effectively represent them.”
