Behind the Window

By Ty Young

Arizona Daily Wildcat

As the voice of the student body, ASUA attempts to balance varied opinions with effective

When Ben Graff, student body president, peers out the windows of his office, he sees more than just students milling around between classes or listening to bands playing on the UA Mall.

To himself and the other elected officials of the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, the student population represents a mixture thousands of opinions, beliefs and principles tailored to each individual student.

ASUA's job, Graff said, is to smooth that mixture into policy and decisions that properly represent the needs and desires of over 35,000 students.

Graff, who has served as a member of ASUA for four years, said judging what students want is the most important part of student government.

"Just because you're elected doesn't mean that what you think is what the student body thinks," he said. "I feel very uncomfortable in my position making decisions that the students may not be backing - it's one the most dangerous things you can do as student body president is just assume that your opinion is that of the student body."

Since its inception in 1914, ASUA has evolved with the student body, creating new programs to not only serve the students, but also represent their opinions to the administration.

For some UA students, this is an important part of the college life.

"I think it is hard to have a significant student government with a student body as large as ours," said Melinda Mills, a political science junior. "I think for our situation, just to have a body of students that the general campus knows is important so that students know that they do have a say in what is going on."

One of the most important concerns raised by the student body over the past few years involved continuing difficulties with student advising. The issue was brought forth to the ASUA, where students were able to voice their opinions to their elected officials.

Their voices were not only heard by ASUA, but UA President Peter Likins. After these meetings, the members of ASUA implemented strategies to better inform the president rather than merely pass the word.

In an innovative move at the beginning of this semester, Graff asked Likins to accompany him around campus to better involve the president and inform him of what the student body sees every day.

When the two arrived at the Modern Languages building, Graff asked Likins to make an advising appointment just as hundreds of students do every day. Although he was already informed about the difficulties making advising appointments, the UA president saw first hand the process for appointment settings - and the tiresome work that goes into it.

"It was extremely insightful. I frankly had not understood the complexities of our undergraduate advising program here," Likins said of the meeting. "And students as consequence are not provided the kind of convenient contact with an older person who becomes well-known to them that we'd normally expect an advising system to provide."

Since then, Likins has made it known that UA student advising is in need of better communication with the student body, as well as more state funding.

While student communication with the administration is difficult due to time constraints, Graff said ASUA attempts to bridge that gap by first gathering student thought and then talking to school officials.

Representing Changing Times

Just as the climate of the student body has evolved through time, so has that of ASUA. After two world wars, the Vietnam conflict and the women's liberation and civil rights movements, student representation has taken on many different forms.

When ASUA President Edith White-Hales was voted into office in 1943, she took control over a student body facing the realities of World War II.

"We were very aware of the war, besides the fact that we all had male friends who were in war it was probably the most overwhelming concern," she said. "Some of the men would start school and pretty soon they were gone. It wasn't the same at all."

As the first female ASUA president, White-Hales led a student population where women outnumbered men three to one. However, without the military personel stationed in the UA residence halls, the women outnumbered the men 10 to one.

White-Hales said the fact she was the first female ASUA president was an obvious representation of the student body.

"I never felt particularly inflated about it - I think it was a matter of the times," she said. "I took it all in stride because all the men were off at war."

Despite the war-time influences, White-Hales said ASUA was forced to deal with many issues that students faced.

"It wasn't really an active time for civilians, so it was a very unique time in history," she said. "We did do a quite an involved study on cheating - which produced nothing."

George Drach, ASUA president in 1957, dealt with the aftermath of the war, including a large number of veterans returning to school on the GI Bill. Just as White-Hales saw a decrease in male students, Drach saw an increase.

"Some of them had come back and had gone to work in some kind of industry or something for a while (after the war)," he said. "They really wanted to go back to college."

During his tenure, Drach was confronted with some student issues that are still prevalent today.

"We had a few major discussions about the positioning of the traffic light at Campbell Avenue and the Mall," said Drach, an alumnus of Phi Gamma Delta. "That was quite a heavy discussion if I remember correctly. The other was parking. Student parking was every bit as much of a problem then as it is now."

At that time, Bear Down Gymnasium was sided with two parking lots, both of which were sacrificed in order to build the Main and the Science and Technology libraries.

Drach said that while ASUA officials voiced their opinions on behalf of the students, he and the rest of the student government lacked the power to make any changes.

There was one issue that ASUA has a direct impact upon, through which Drach said left a very lasting impression on campus.

"The big thing that happened when I was student body president that was a kind of campus uproar was what was called a 'panty raid,'" he said. "Panty raids were the rage and so what happened the student (government) thought they should take some leadership action and that kind of thing.

"So when the raving groups of fraternity people would start wandering around the streets, we had a counter action. We sort of walked around with other members of student council leaders and tried to talk people into being calm and quiet."

With a campus of more than 35,000, deciding what is on the minds of students can be difficult, Graff said. In order to develop proper policies and make needed decisions, Graff said he relies heavily on two basic entities.

"One is the student body. Without the student body, there is no purpose to my position," he said. "And more closely is ASUA as a whole. Without the inter-workings and structure of ASUA, my position is useless and my position is very dangerous."

As part of his campaign platform, Graff created a team that surveys students in order to gauge their interests. The program, named PULSE and modeled after a comparable program at Pennsylvania State University, is led by a Laval Malanchi.

The group has amassed more than 300 surveys that deal with basic campus issues such as parking and student advising.

Likins said determining student thought in this way is a very involved process.

"It's not just a random process of going out on the Mall and asking students what they think," he said.

While attempting to represent the student body, Graff said there are some instances where questionable student involvement by those under the "umbrella" of ASUA causes confusion.

The Student Against Sweatshops, an active UA club that earlier this month barricaded the UA Administration building, is one of those organizations that expresses its principles while under the management of ASUA.

As an avenue for student thought, Graff said ASUA must allow for all student involvement that is recognized by the UA Office of Student Programs.

"We don't have any governing control over any of the clubs or organizations on campus," he said. "The only aspect that we decide directly for clubs is whether or not we should fund them for specific purposes. We have the ability to control clubs through funding requests, but ASUA would have no right, in my opinion - and I wouldn't allow it - for ASUA to mandate what a club can and cannot do."

For some students, this is the main role of student government.

"At the university level, I think that (ASUA) should be helping the students, especially student organizations get off their feet and making sure that they are the voice for us on the whole college level," said Manuel Espinoza, a political science junior. "A lot of this is run above the students and (ASUA) are the ones the represent us and represent our voice."