COVID-19 has forced almost every aspect of life into a virtual format, and the University of Oregon’s student government, ASUO, is no exception. While many of the central focuses of their work remain unchanged, student officers are also focused on adapting to online platforms.
“The process of speaking and having a speakers list and trying to get everyone to be able to have their word in makes it a little bit more difficult on Zoom,” said ASUO Senate President Claire O’Connor, “because it’s not so much of a conversation format anymore.” Balancing speaking time is especially difficult in Senate meetings, which can expect to have upwards of 25 people in attendance once all seats are filled.
Asa Ward, the programs finance committee vice chair and ASUO senator, also noted that the virtual nature of ASUO makes it more difficult for him to communicate with other officers. “It’s definitely a lot more difficult to communicate,” he said. “Everything’s email, over text, over phone, over Zoom, and it makes it so you have to be on top of things a little bit more.”
However, a number of things remain the same: the Senate still focuses on the same topics, the weekly meetings are open to the public and the agenda allots 30 minutes for a public forum.
“It is kind of hard to get the word out,” O’Connor said, “because there’s a specific link and agenda that you need to have, as opposed to just being able to walk into a meeting room.”
Although O’Connor said barriers to sharing the meeting make it hard to gauge student engagement in senate matters, she’s working to make senators more accessible through office hours. Currently, students can go to the ASUO Officer spreadsheet to get in touch with their representatives, but a number of officers are looking to make the move to Calendly to allow for easier scheduling.
For ASUO President Isaiah Boyd, getting student input on ASUO executive matters is a central priority. Student input and COVID-19 are the two new focuses for his administration — on top of tuition engagement, textbook affordability and food security. For COVID-19, the executive branch has added a secretary of student health advocacy position, which Addy Alfred currently fills.
“ASUO traditionally has been very awful when it comes to student engagement,” said Boyd. “I like to make the joke that we’re basically a shadow government in the way that we’ve been in the past.”
This year, Boyd said he wants “to make sure that student voices are heard no matter what.” He’s been primarily focused on doing this over social media, both via the ASUO accounts and by reaching out to profiles and pages that are popular among UO students.
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel where we’re the center of it,” said Boyd. Instead, he said, ASUO is trying to go where students already are.
“We’re not really expecting students to just come to us and feed us the news or their complaints,” he said, “but more so making it so we can go to where they’re already accessible.”
Although plans for increased engagement with UO’s student body were in the works before it was clear that the fall semester would be mostly online, Boyd said operating over virtual platforms simplifies some aspects of communication.
He’s mindful of the work — academic or otherwise — that the executive branch is taking on outside of ASUO. Boyd said it’s easier to find an hour to meet over Zoom than it might be to cement a time at which everyone can physically appear at the EMU. On top of that, there’s the option to record Zoom meetings for any absent members, he said.
“My hope is that it’ll extend that into the transparency part of things,” he said about the virtual format, “and we’ll be able to have forums that students can join in on and make us more accessible wherever they might be, whether that be in their home, in a class, things like that.”
Besides the student forums, Boyd is hoping to implement a series of workshops for the student body. He previewed these as a sort of TED Talk series to create an intellectual space for students.
Regardless of how the workshops play out, Boyd is determined to take advantage of the virtual format and amplify student voices in his conversations with UO administration — especially when it comes to the university’s COVID-19 response.
“I think student voices need to be heard now more than ever,” he said. “We are seeing the flaws in the system that they’ve created, so they need to listen to what we have to say. They cannot just disregard student input, especially since their choices are impacting student lives.”
