Jose Perales, ADSG Public Relations Chair

With a full month into the 2019 Fall Semester, Augsburg Day Student Government (ADSG) has been rolling at full steam. One aspect of ADSG is that senators have the opportunity to serve on extended committees.

The Senators that are serving on these committees do so as representatives of the student body. This year there are five extended committees. The Assessment Committee measures student learning through collecting information from classroom artifacts and utilizing surveys. The Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Committee assess practices and makes recommendations around equity and inclusion at Augsburg. Academic Affairs, which makes decisions around credits, coursework and majors and minors. The University Council Resource Committee makes recommendations on how to allocate Augsburg’s budget and proposes major projects on campus. The Student-Athlete Advisory Board (SAAC), which is composed of representatives from all of Augsburg’s sports plus one representative each from ADSG and ASAC revolves around how to best support student athletes by hearing about their experiences. The final committee is the Echo Advisory Board, which makes recommendations on behalf of the day student body with regards to the Augsburg Echo.

Meanwhile, the Finance Committee has been supporting events, projects, and encouraging collaborations between student organizations. There was a rollover from last year of $11,809.83, bringing the Day Student Activities Fee to $397,909.83. The Day Student Activities Fee was allocated towards the budget and stipends of all commissioned student organizations as well as the following funds allocated by last year’s ADSG:  $15,000 towards grants for commissioned organizations, $25,000 towards grants for chartered organizations, $25,000 towards travel grants, $5,000 towards the Emergency Fund, and $20,000 into the Long-Term Project Fund.

With $20,000 in our long-term project fund and another $10,000 in our Christensen Center Project fund, we’re asking students from all over campus to send us ideas on what changes they would like to see around campus. Our Environmental Action Committee (EAC) Budget was approved with a rollover of  $123,674.36 from last year. The Day Student Green Fee collected $80,673.18 this year. Our total budget for EAC is $204,347.54, which any Day Student, organization or department can partner with EAC to use.

Focusing on undocumented employment is one goal that came up during our ADSG retreat last month. We opted to create a special committee as opposed to delegating this goal to Student Concerns, since we did not want to overload the Student Concerns Committee. Thus, the Special Committee on Undocumented Employment was formed to explore the way that Augsburg can expand employment opportunities for undocumented students on-campus. The committee is chaired by Daniel Degollado, who currently serves as ADSG treasurer and has already been doing work in this area. This committee is volunteer-based and open to any Day Student who wishes to help with this work. The Special Committee will have their first meeting on October 17th, from 5:30 to 6:30. The meeting will focus on understanding what it is to be undocumented, followed by a brainstorming session.

This article was originally published in the October 11, 2019 issue.