Searching for student voices

Portland State wants you to help shape university policies.

The Associated Students of Portland State University is currently accepting applicants for several student vacancies on the All-University Committees at PSU.

AUCs mold the student policies that directly affect the entire student body. Each committee has goals that they focus on throughout the year, such as settling academic requirements or making important economic decisions that affect students.

Though all students are invited to serve on an AUC, only a fraction of the student body chooses to do so. The number of students signed up for the committees is always lowest during summer term, so few people involved in the recruitment process seem too worried.
At least not yet.

“Having difficulty recruiting in the summer is pretty normal,” said Marcus Sis, a PSU economics major and former university affairs director for ASPSU.

The sentiment was echoed by Thomas Worth, current university affairs director for ASPSU, who chalks up the annual summer vacancies to high student turnover and “because AUCs seldom, if ever, meet during the summer.”

Nor does the administration seem overly vexed by the existing vacancies. Aimee Shattuck, director of the Student Activities and Leadership Programs, said that she does not fault ASPSU for the current low numbers in student committees because this situation happens every year.

But even if the lack of students serving on AUCs is only a temporary, seasonal problem, it does not mean that this continual lack of student committee members is without consequences. Shattuck explained that if students do not fill the seats, the AUCs cannot adequately operate.

Shattuck is especially concerned with the lack of students on committees that allot funds intended to cover student travel expenses and bringing a speaker to the university.
“We can’t give grants without students. During the summer we get behind as grant proposals pile up,” she said.

Shattuck and Worth both agree that seats should be filled sooner rather than later.
Shattuck said that in years past when “ASPSU is on top of the recruiting process, the seats are filled by early fall. When they are not, they are filled by the end of the fall term.”
Worth’s goal is to have at least one student sitting on each board by Sept. 15, the date that the committees generally start meeting. He currently has more than 20 student applications that he is looking over.

Worth is optimistic that the seats will be filled by the start of the school year, but if they are not he warns that it will be “much harder for students to have an active role in the decision-making process of the university…The student voice is only as powerful as the students who represent it.”

Anthony Stine, a PSU student who is pursuing a doctorate in public affairs and policy, also believes it is crucial for students to be represented in the AUCs. Stine, current communications director of ASPSU, served last year on the publications board, a committee responsible for crafting policy and hiring editors and advisers for student media outlets at PSU. He plans to sit on the committee again this year.

Stine said that without students on PSU’s publications board, “only administrators and non-students…would make all decisions for the publications relating to policy…There would be no student input.”

Representing the student body is also what attracted Sis to AUCs. Sis, who sat on the Smith Memorial Student Union Advisory Board during his term as university affairs director of ASPSU, said that sitting on a committee is the easiest way to increase student voice and influence decision-making.

He also believes that there is a personal benefit to be gained from sitting on the board.
“You get experiences you wouldn’t otherwise be getting,” Sis said. “You will need to be serious and work hard, but it isn’t difficult to fit into your schedule.”

If you are interested in serving on an AUC, you can apply to be nominated by going to aspsu.pdx.edu.