Meet UCSU, Part 1

Written by Sara Kassabian in News on Mar 16, 2009 18:25 / comments

With spring UCSU elections scheduled for April 6 – 10, the CU Independent is giving students a closer look at just what UCSU is and what it does for them. Leading up to April 6, we will publish a story in our series every Monday giving readers a better picture of how their student government operates.

When students are faced with the question, “What is UCSU?” confusion is the common consensus.

“It’s the student, I don’t know, government, I guess… kind of,” said Katherine Thompson, 20, a junior integrative physiology and math major.

Thompson is not alone. The majority of students say they are unaware of UCSU, otherwise known as the University of Colorado Student Union, does on campus.

UCSU is in charge of a $30 million budget comprised from funds from student fees and the Cost Centers on campus, according to the UCSU http://www-ucsu.colorado.edu/webber/information.cfm Web site.

“It’s really similar to our national government,” said Victoria Garcia, a UCSU tri-executive and senior communications major. “There’s three branches: executive, judicial and legislative.”

The executive branch is comprised of three tri-executives and a staff that changes from year to year depending on the administration.

“I would have to say the executive staff is really kind of where a lot of the work gets done,” Garcia said. “All our directors and liaisons, they go to a lot of meetings, they sit on a lot of boards and committees, they are the student voice of the campus basically in a lot of different areas.”

The three tri-executives are the leaders of UCSU and are elected by the student body through online voting each spring and hold a one-year term, according to the UCSU Web site.

In addition to Garcia, the current tri-executives are Ryan Biehle and Dustin Farivar, both senior political science majors.

The Legislative Council is in charge of passing legislation and voting on budgets. The council is comprised of two equal governing bodies, the Representative Council and the Council of Colleges and Schools.

The Representative Council is comprised of nine representatives-at-large, five who are elected in the spring, and four who are elected in the fall. The Council of Colleges and Schools has one or two representatives elected from every academic school on campus. All of the representatives and executives are invited to give reports from each of the schools during Legislative Council meetings.

There is a Legislative Council president and a Legislative Council vice president who are also elected. The current president is senior international affairs major Blaine Pellicore and the current vice president is junior political science major Daniel Omasta.

“So this is like the policy-making stage,” Garcia said. “This is where legislation gets brought forward, like rules and regulations.”

This fall the Legislative Council elected to make the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Resource Center a Cost Center on campus, meaning the center’s budget is managed in part by UCSU and is funded by student fees.

“That’s a really great example of the power of Leg[islative] Council,” Garcia said of the GLBT center being funded as a cost center.

Legislative Council meetings are open to the public, and are held every Thursday at 7 p.m. in UMC 247.

“Anytime you can come in and speak,” Garcia said. “We’re really open, we want to hear what students need, what we want to see happen. We can only do so much, so there’s definitely opportunities for students to come and be heard.”

Senior English major and CU Gold member Alex Rowan disagrees about UCSU’s accessibility to the average student.

Rowan addressed Legislative Council last semester on behalf of CU Gold, and while he said he feels that the council is willing to listen, encouraging them to act is another issue.

“You need some backing,” Rowan said. “You definitely need a lot of people on your side for them to really give you an audience.”

The judicial branch is comprised of nine justices, who are appointed by the executive branch whenever a spot is open. Their chief priority is to check for policy violations.

“They typically only come together for something like elections or group funding,” Garcia said. “They only come together when necessary, and I think the last time they were assembled was two years ago.”

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Sara Kassabian at Sara.kassabian@colorado.edu.

About Sara Kassabian

Sara is a senior news-editorial major and the editor-in-chief of the CU Independent. She has previously edited the opinion, news and entertainment sections of the publication, and worked as a managing editor last spring. Sara has been working in journalism for six years, writing about everything from politics to pornography. She is pursuing a minor in philosophy and is participating in the International Media certificate program. Outside of classes and chasing down leads, Sara likes to collect vinyl records, read books, tell stories, lurk the Boulder Humane Society website and be generally enthusiastic. She hopes to someday apply her education to a career that requires writing, editing or reading in her own private library.