The Academic Team at OSU at the recent Student Involvement Fair. Credit: Courtesy of Danel Hernandez.
Danel Fernandez is a second-year Masters of Public Administration student and president of the student organization The Academic Team at Ohio State.
I am writing this letter to express my grievances regarding Undergraduate Student Government (USG). As a primary leader of a student organization, I feel that USG is apathetic about student organization contributions to the student experience with its lackluster support for representing our issues to administration.
My student organization, the Academic Team at OSU, has had sporadic support from USG regarding funding. While we regularly get approved for funding, we consistently have waited over a semester for reimbursement and, on one occasion, almost 2 years.
I have also had to deal with countless rule changes from administration: from restrictions on what buildings we can reserve for meetings and special event spaces, and now, a 90-minute time-limit on said reservations. I have yet to get a clear explanation for why these rules are in place. I brought them up to multiple people in administration with no success. I also have seen little talk in general about the issues of student orgs or administration really caring about our input.
I remember being reached out by one of the candidates in the spring for what we would like to see USG do and I will express those feelings here. I would like for USG to reach out to student organizations and talk to us as elected delegates. I would like for USG to hear our grievances regarding space requests, long wait periods for funding, confusing directions on who to reach out to for services or requests, etc.
Student orgs are just as valuable to the experiences of students as Buck-i-Frenzy and football games. Over 1600 of us provide outlets of recreation to students to make their time here at Ohio State just a bit easier. I am writing this not to dunk on USG but to do the first step on finding and being part of the solution: identifying the problem.
