A New Coat of Paint

I've been doing a lot of painting around the ASGA office lately. A fresh, new coat of paint really makes things look great. All of the old blemishes are covered and everything looks unified when it's colored the same.

All of the touchup made me think of the tarnished images of many student governments around the country. Perhaps yours is one of them. Students think you're a joke and administrators don't take you seriously.

By putting a new coat of paint on your "image" you can start changing how students and administrators see you. ASGA has a ton of resources on how to use public relations techniques to improve your image and ability to reach out to your constituents.

If you're not a member institution, join now at www.asgaonline.com.

ASGA in the news

ASGA was contacted by the Los Angeles Times to get student leaders' reaction to the death of Osama bin Laden. ASGA reached out to our members and instantly the Times reporter got calls from 15 students leaders. He interviewed nine of them for his article, which was published. See http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bin-laden-generation-20110504,0,1617733.story

ASGA is frequently called on by members of the press nationwide. If you're interested in being contacted by the press, please let ASGA know by writing info@asgaonline.com.

What is the average turnout in SG elections?

For years, ASGA has referred to a figure of 2 percent nationwide in Student Government elections. This accounts for all types of institutions, but is lower because so many community and technical colleges either don't have elections or have very poor turnout. However, we have been seeing evidence that turnout has been increasing. So we recently surveyed the nation to see what the current figure is. We've received nearly 400 completed surveys and are aiming for 500. This would be 10 percent of the institutions participating. So far, the turnout is much higher than 2%. About 43% of the respondents have turnout under 10 percent and 70 percent have turnout under 20 percent. The survey so far has higher participation among private institutions and lower participation among community colleges. We're concerned that those with higher turnout are more likely to participate as well. ASGA also gathers data from our own internal research. So in the next few months, we're going to reviewing all of this and producing a report on what the turnout is now nationwide among all types of institutions.