New Blog Soon!

It is with great pleasure that I would like to announce that Your-SG will finally make good on its campaign promise and open up a new blog on the SG website (its in testing now).

This blog, and forum, will hopefully fulfill the promises made in the campaign to increase student voice and participation and allow for greater transparency.

I will get back to you soon on the new URL (somewhere on the SG server) and format for both these new features. Its been a tough first quarter but we haven't forgotten you, old blog!

-Scott

Presidential Conversation

Dear Blog Readers,

Today College Council hosted President Zimmer for a Student Conversation concerning Undergraduate Aid as part of an attempt by both SG and the President's office to find a new forum beyond the old Brown Bag model.

Now I know there are many people who are real fans of the Brown Bag's but in the experience of the administrators they either attract too few people or too many to make them really meaningful. That's why we tried this new RSVP model (although everyone who RSVPed got to attend) in an attempt to keep the number of people in the room down to a level where we could have conversations.

I'd give the whole experience a seven out of ten. Ten being everyone walked out of the room hugging each other and One being everyone in tears (including our President and myself).

While many students have commented that the event was full of "soft ball" questions, I think the conversation did clear up many pressing issues for students concerning the organization and structural concerns behind Undergraduate Aid. While some of these could have been answered by a deeper look at the College Aid website or some of the University's Financial Statements, having the President or Vice President Behnke answer the questions showed the administrators that students were concerned and thinking about these problems.

And despite the criticisms of softball ism, I didn't exactly see any Randy Johnsons step up and throw a fastball (for anyone who knows baseball, is this a good metaphor? I just loves the mullet). Now maybe Zimmer wouldn't even have taken a swing, but at least you could have brought some heat. (No more baseball, I promise).

I'd say it was a seven because we had a good, albeit not ideal, conversation with the President. I felt like he got to hear from many students, albeit not everyone in the room due to shyness/time constraints. One thing I'd definitely change in the future is a 'who are you' moment to let people to get accustomed to each other before the President came in. Because if you have a question there should be nothing holding you back.

But all and all I felt like the event was a success. President Zimmer is an interesting guy and I think if we're going to make his time as President successful we need to get him out among students as much as possible.

Questions, Comments, Criticism, please post here.


-Scott

NSIT Update

Recent I've learned that our new, beautiful website is still under complete NSIT control. To edit this page, the current Slate needs to send an e-mail to someone in Virginia for it to get put on her to-do list. That's opposed to this blog, where I can casually logon at any time and post content at will.

What's ironic about this lockdown is that NSIT just announced how quick, easy, and wonderful their new Web Express program is at helping Departments update and manage their websites.

Quote:

Since most department sites have a unique look and feel, Web Express uses custom-defined templates that make it easy to maintain a consistent design. Approved editors can easily make text updates, add images and links, and create new pages without advanced design or coding skills, thanks to a user-friendly interface offering formatting tools similar to Microsoft Word.

The only thing keeping SG away from this wonderful Web Express is that you'd have to substitute the word Student for Department, which apparently NSIT is not ok with. While the exact details are fuzzy, the current Slate says they don't want to give students access to Web Express.

I wouldn't find this such a big deal, except we have just spent a bunch of YOUR money building this new website. Except what we have now isn't a website, not in the way you and I think of the word. What we have is instead some sort of statue, a marble edifice which will remain static despite the passage of time and events. That's not a website (see bellow)

Its sad that in an effort to make SG more legitimate through professional design and site organization, we may have sacrificed the real power of the online content: the power to be relevant.


We can do better. For an idea of what the ol'interweb is capable of, observe:





-Scott

Thank you for your help and support

I'd like to say thank you for everyone who came to the blog to learn about our Slate and were hopefully motivated to vote for us.

This blog was more successful then I could have ever imagined, pulling in almost 1,000 hits and around 1,700 page views. The comments we received on the blog were great and reassured us that students wanted to talk about the issues if they only had a forum to make their views known.

We'll hopefully keep posting for a little bit about the transition from the current slate, but the eventual goal is to make sg.uchicago.edu as user friendly and easy to update as this blog.

Again, I'd just like to thank everyone for their help and support for the last few days. What a long, strange trip its been.

-Scott

Top Five Ways to Help Your-SG Win

In the spirit of High Fidelity I present to you the Top Five Ways you can help Your-SG get elected. In order of importance:

1. Vote here. And tell all your friends to go to sg.uchicago.edu to vote. Harass them. They'll thank you later (really).
2. After you vote, find someone from Your-SG (we'll be in the McCormick Tribune Lounge tonight from 7-9!) and get a sticker or a button to let everybody know you voted.
3. If someone sends a goofy e-mail to your House or RSO listhost saying vote for the other guys, reply and debate them! This is an open process and we need debate about the ideas each Slate brings to the table. Point them to the blog, mention that we came up with the all night study space in Reynolds thing first, just talk about the ideas.
   
4. Announce the election is happening in your classes. Get people to remember this is going on.
5. Casually ask everyone you know if they've read the Maroon's insightful editorial. Act shocked if they say no.
   

We really appreciate the help. It's been a fun couple of weeks getting this blog up and hearing from students about ideas or misspelled words on the posters. Hopefully you've had as much fun as we have. In a couple of days it'll all be over, so put in the extra effort to make it all worth while.

Thank you and now please enjoy Jack Black:

Maroon Endorsement and Coverage

I am honored to announce that Your-SG has received the endorsement from the Chicago Maroon.

Here's their editorial explaining why you should vote for us (vote here):

Make Your-SG our SG

By Maroon Editorial Staff

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

This year’s communication failure between students and the administration illustrated the need of Student Government (SG) to perform its proper function: to represent the views of the students. SG has better access to administrators on campus than most students. But while the top administrators are eager to lend their ears, SG has not yet formed a cohesive voice. This year, the Most Known Unknowns and Your-SG are the two slates for the SG Executive Committee vying to fill that void. Delta Upsilon’s spoof slate, the Moose Party, has also thrown its hat into the ring in its annual protest against SG.

While the Maroon is tempted by the Most Known Unknowns’ promise to bring a fresh voice to SG, the slate suffers from inexperience and presents few original ideas or concrete plans. The centerpiece of the Most Known Unknowns’ platform is a big speaker fund, but when pressed on how they will find the five- or six-figure sums required to bring such speakers to campus, the candidates naïvely insisted that “there’s always money somewhere.” This unfamiliarity with the intricacies of SG finances highlights the slate’s lack of experience; only one of its three candidates has previously served on SG.

The Maroon was pleased to hear Your-SG’s goal to make SG a credible intermediary between the administration and students. Your-SG plans to increase accountability by hiring an independent secretary for all College Council meetings. The slate also proposes creating an SG Executive Committee blog to encourage communication between the student body and SG. Its proposal for an RSO Wiki would enable each student group to present its own face and contact information to students without unnecessary red tape.

Your-SG has reasonable plans to tackle student life concerns. From bringing back a popular location for the all-night study space to adding more blue security lights off campus, Your-SG has a well thought-out platform. The slate has expressed a desire to work with and bring ideas to the Transportation and Parking Office to make both the CTA and late-night bus service more convenient for the University community. The candidates also maintain a sensible stance on the U-Pass—they support giving students a choice via a referendum while maintaining that the costs are prohibitive.

Your-SG offers the right mix of experience, new ideas, and leadership that the student body needs. The slate presented its ideas with research details to show that the candidates had done their homework. With hope for a better year for SG, the Maroon endorses Your-SG.

U-Pass shouldn’t pass this week

Also on the ballot is a referendum on the U-Pass. While the Maroon is glad to see the issue finally put to a vote, the U-Pass is not financially sound for most students on campus given the average student’s travel habits. The Maroon votes no on the U-Pass and encourages level-headed students to do the same.

The news office also wrote a story profiling the slate, which you can find here.

And, just in case I didn't mention it before,

VOTE

Big Idea: Picinic Tables!

I recently received this e-mail about a way to make campus life better.

Hi,

I have a request/question. So with all this nice weather
I've noticed that there is virtually no place to sit outside
and do work except on the grass. Im talking about a serious
lack of tables. Simple picnic tables set up on the quad and
all over campus. What if it rained the night before, and I
don't want to sit on the grass? I really can't believe that
no one has suggested putting picnic tables around campus.

I think this is a great idea and one which can be easily implemented using the Slate's budget, we'd make sure we'd do it if elected (maybe even before we start our term in the fall).


While the current Slate has a 'Big Ideas' listhost, no one knows about it or posts, unfortunately. What'd be easier is just make sure students know who we are and what we're thinking so you can send us e-mails like this one.


Thanks for the note, and please send us more ideas.