Students voice opinion in think tank
When the Aggie Health and Wellness Center was put on the ballot of last year’s ASUSU election, hundreds of students took to Facebook and Twitter to express frustration or support. Now, students can express the same sentiments in person thanks to a new organization called the Student Voice Think Tank.
ASUSU Student Advocate and think tank founder Christian Orr said he hopes the organization will make campus better by allowing students to identify problems that need to be fixed as well as gather resources to fix them.
He said the think tank is not only a good way to fix the school, but also a good way for the students involved to get real world experience.
“I hope that this experience will give you an opportunity to be a better well-rounded individual and also prepare you for future opportunities,” Orr said during the organization’s first meeting Thursday.
Orr said the think tank has been on his mind since he first ran for student office in February. The idea had come from David Smith, a USU student who is one of Orr’s good friends.
While many people had petitioned the school for changes in the past, not many changes had actually been made because no one would carry them out, Orr said.
“We wanted to get students together who would be proactive about it,” Orr said. “When we hit fall semester and these things started coming up, I realized that it’s not … any individual thing, that we have to own it.”
During the meeting, some students weren’t sure how the think tank could make a difference on campus.
“What are you going to do differently?” said Mark Warren, a senior majoring in law and constitutional studies, to Orr. “Most of these ideas are something that you’d said had come up in the past… How do we know that something’s going to be done this time?”
Orr responded by saying he would not be working by himself to fix the school. Orr said he believes if students were to work together on projects that they chose, they could make a bigger difference than one or two student advocates because they would be motivated to make a difference.
“You have to show them value,” said Orr. “If you can say, ‘This is going to change your experience, this is going to make it better for your time and everyone around you,’ people resonate to that.”
Another way Orr plans to motivate students is to have representatives from each college on campus involved with the think tank. If each college were to each take part in think tank, the university could help them more quickly, he said. Think tank member Samantha Burrows said she believes the tank can truly help the different colleges on campus.
“I have a lot of faith in the students of Utah State,” she said. “I also have a lot of faith in Christian. I think he’s the perfect guy to start something like this.”
Several projects for the university were discussed at length in the meeting. The first was a plan to add more bike racks to campus in order to stop students from chaining bikes to trees. Several members of the think tank said the areas around the engineering building are always the most crowded for bike space.
The second project discussed involved the Clean Air Act of 2007. The act designated certain areas of campus, specifically areas around the entrances and exits of buildings, as smoke-free. According to Orr, the university took a poll and students are in favor of a tobacco free campus. However, Orr said many places that are supposed to be smoke-free, like the area around the TSC, are being polluted and need to be cleaned out.
The third project the think tank discussed was organizing the student fees forum. Orr said many students don’t know what their fees completely cover and that, according to a requirement made by the state in 2004, the information should be public knowledge.
The think tank will meet once a month to discuss new problems and progressing projects.
– addison.m.t.hall@gmail.com