What would make USG an actually effective organization? 

For those who missed the many flyers, social media posts, articles from The Daily Campus and frantic texts in big club group chats all surrounding the subject, this week was election season here at the University of Connecticut. The Undergraduate Student Government had its annual three-day period of public voting for its four elected officials: the president, vice president, comptroller and chief diversity officer. Alongside this there were special elections for the undergraduate representative on the board of trustees, as well as referendums on student fee usage for many Tier-III organizations. Overall, it’s been a time of great political excitement, with much of the public being urged to get out to vote and, more generally, to actually care about what happens in USG.  

This is because, as some of the current candidates for office recognize, there exists a certain barrier between the organization and the student body, with many students not even knowing what it does or how it impacts them. These are valid confusions, considering many of the assumptions about what an undergraduate student government does don’t turn out to be true. The common conception of a “government” includes the ability to make policy decisions that require certain conduct from its constituents, or, simply, to make laws telling people what to do or not do. Yet, within UConn, USG doesn’t have this ability. Largely, their legislation focuses on deciding the usage of the student fees they get and creating rules for the operations of the USG community itself. The only real legislative power they have is to appoint student representatives to the University Senate, the real legislative body of UConn. They hold just five seats within the senate overall out of 104 total, and they are able to select only two members to each specific committee working under the senate. These range from being about 11-20 members each, diluting the share of student representation to at most being just below 20% in this slow and grueling policy process. Ironically enough, the percentage of representatives on the student welfare committee is the lowest of them all, with undergraduates making up less than 10% of the group, but I digress. The point is to say that as far as USG goes, its power to actually make decisions that truly affect the university community is severely limited.  

As far as the rest of its power? The majority of it is simply using the student fees they’re given to provide direct resources to students and Tier-II organizations, and, on its own, there’s not really much to say there. It’s good that USG provides free New York Times subscriptions, period boxes and pop-up food pantries for students. Yet, frankly, when you get over $1.7 million in revenue each year, efforts like that ought to be expected.  

The thing is, it’s like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole. These are stopgap measures that can realistically only do so much for a limited amount of students without actually addressing the underlying issue. For example, it’s nice that USG does pop-up food pantries every so often, but why do students really need that? Maybe there’s a question there about the high and continually rising price of dining plans at this school that ought to provide students with basic food security. In order to address these issues which truly plague the student body, if not through legislation or student fees, it requires a reimagination of what this organization does.  

The biggest strength that USG has, way above its money and senate seats, is its legitimacy. This is to say, it is a universally recognized body as having some form of delegated authority from the students. It’s an institution with at least some respect. This is very important in terms of its ability to get students to take action, because they implicitly recognize a connection between themselves and the organization, even if they might not interact with it much in their daily lives. Plus, most people at the very least know someone or can connect with someone in USG in their daily lives, a byproduct of the fact that there are so many senators and staffers that are a part of it, giving them a large mouthpiece to communicate with students across Storrs. If this connection can be utilized correctly, then USG will have, more than any other student organization that arises to address a problem, an extremely strong ability to organize students into action.  

In short, USG needs to stop thinking like a government and start thinking like a union. They don’t have real legislative power, but they can have the students on their side. The student body, which holds great power within this school community (when effectively organized towards a purpose), can accomplish much greater things than USG can alone. Just look at #SaveUConn and what USG was able to do the one time it actually mobilized students towards a goal. Now, was it a complete farce and also a huge waste of effort on their part? Yes, but at the very least, it was a show of force, that they could get students behind a cause and to take action on it. Simply put, what if that kind of effort was put into sustainably developing pressure on the university on other issues? 

Every USG politician claims they want to do something about tuition hikes, campus sustainability, budget cuts and all the other substantive issues that get to the core of what it means to be a student here. If we take some notes from other bodies within UConn, such as the American Association of University Professors and the Graduate Employee & Postdoc Union, maybe the answer to these issues doesn’t lie in just showing up at senate meetings and “advocating” on behalf of students. Maybe the answer lies in creating community for them, organizing and then mobilizing them en masse directly to make an impact.  

We’ve seen what students can do on their own in this regard, as the most impactful steps taken to make change on sustainability, sexual violence and demilitarization in the past several years have all come from outside of spaces like USG. Instead of standing idly by and watching, there is an opportunity to re-envision what this organization is so that it can better support such movements and the UConn community as a whole.