The ASEWU spent the summer creating a philosophy to help guide them to success during the 2012-2013 school year.

President Kaleb Hoffer said ASEWU plans to break broad goals down into projects that will be managed by ASEWU teams.

“Our plan is to build teams, more like action committees,” he said. “Rather than wasting all of our resources with everyone working on every goal together, we’d rather break it apart into groups and have natural teams form. We’re hoping that our teams recognize how they would be a player and how they would naturally fit together to get some buy-in out of them, rather than us executives saying, ‘This is what we need you to do.’”

ASEWU has set goals in five areas to help improve student experience at Eastern.

Exposure

Both Hoffer and Executive Vice President Becca Harrell emphasized the importance of increasing communication between students and ASEWU.

“If you ask the students what they want, they will really open up to you,” Hoffer said. “They don’t generally just volunteer to come give you their opinion, but if you ask, they have one.”

They plan to be more accessible to students in order to better understand their needs.

Harrell and ASEWU member Rachel Wilder planned to jump-start their accessibility by having a table on the campus mall on the first day of classes. [“We] plan on just talking to students, hearing what they want to see happen this year, making sure that we’re running off of their agenda, and then just also helping students find their classes,” Harrell said. “That was one of our communication goals that is already accomplished that we’re really excited about.”

ASEWU also has plans to use social media to increase communication and interaction. Among these is the idea for an online site where EWU students can buy and sell textbooks with each other and a free smartphone app called “Oohlala” that provides users with a campus event calendar.

“Every organization on campus, every club on campus, is allowed to post all of their events to this app,” Hoffer said. “It also has social features where students, like new freshmen, are able to connect with other freshmen in an interactive, social way, similar to Facebook, but it’s only for our campus.”

Facilities

The learning commons, housed on the main floor of the JFK library, is a project ASEWU will continue to support.

Hoffer said ASEWU members had a lot of input on the project. “All the furniture that you see was chosen by us students,” he said. “The administration in the room kind of stepped to the back and said, ‘This isn’t for us; it’s for the students,’ and they let us choose.”

ASEWU is also working to follow through with increasing the library’s hours, a pilot project that started last spring. Hoffer said he hopes to see the library open 24 hours a day. “Whether that’s four days a week, five days a week, seven days a week, I don’t know yet,” he said. “But it isn’t as expensive as we thought it would be, so we think we can swing that. Again, we’ve got the administration to back us on this.”

In addition to the library, ASEWU has also set goals for improving the PUB, one of which is to provide an interfaith space for the university’s faith-based groups. “[It] was really a hot topic when it came to election time, and so we made a promise to the students that we’re going to make that happen. We’re now identifying a room in the PUB that we can convert into that, and as executives, we met with administration to get them on board, and they fully support us,” Hoffer said. They hope to have that space sanctioned by the end of the school year.

ASEWU also already managed to put the PUB’s remodel on the university’s master plan. “People have made attempts to accomplish that goal, but no one’s gotten any real traction. This year we sat down with administration and said, ‘This is what our students want,’” Hoffer said. “We’ve got the university administration behind us, and so we hope to, at the very least, have an idea of where the PUB remodel is going to go in the next few years.”

Students

Reflecting the desire to increase communication, ASEWU plans to “seek out ways to improve the inclusivity of our diverse student population.”

“We want to provide open forums,” Hoffer said. “We want to have more interaction with the students. I mean, I’m a fan of data and surveys and all that, but I’m a real big fan of just open communication and hearing from the students directly what they want, just so I’m armed with knowledge and my team is armed with knowledge.”

Accessibility to students is something Harrell wants the ASEWU to improve. “Last year during the elections when we were out in the campus mall talking to people, we learned so many things from students that we never had before, so that’s really something we want to work on: getting out and being more accessible to them,” she said.

Riverpoint campus

ASEWU wants to continue to work to improve the experience at the Riverpoint campus.

Providing a recreation facility, most likely through means of a discounted contract with a gym in Spokane, is an idea they want to keep working on.

They also are looking to provide childcare and increase events for students on the Riverpoint campus.

“We’ve been in contact with ASWSU [Associated Students of Washington State University] down there, and they’re really on board to work with us this year,” Harrell said.

Harrell will also be holding office hours at the Riverpoint campus as a way to improve accessibility. “We’ll have people down there able to talk to the students,” she said.
Student Representation

Last year ASEWU members felt their lobbying efforts in Olympia helped show legislation the importance of funding for higher education. This year they plan to continue fighting budget cuts.

“We were successful last year when we didn’t have any cuts to higher [education], but that was in the middle of a biennium year,” Hoffer said.

This year marks the beginning of a new biennium budget cycle, so cuts are going to be an issue for higher education.

“The beginning of a budget cycle is really where cuts are looked at in order to balance the budget. We’re just trying to show the state that we need this money and we do care, and they can’t do that to us,” Hoffer said.

Harrell said it helps that the Washington Student Association President Shelby Pelon also serves as legislative affairs representative for ASEWU. She said that collaboratively they plan “to make sure that Eastern’s voice is heard over in Olympia this winter.”

Both Hoffer and Harrell feel confident and excited about this year.

“We have an awesome team. Everyone’s really determined to get things done,” Harrell said. “We’re already accomplishing some of our goals, just the smaller ones. [We’re] just growing momentum, and I’m excited to accomplish the bigger ones too.”

ASEWU is also working to follow through with increasing the library’s hours, a pilot project that started last spring.

Hoffer said he hopes to see the library open 24 hours a day.

“Whether that’s four days a week, five days a week, seven days a week, I don’t know yet,” he said. “But it isn’t as expensive as we thought it would be, so we think we can swing that. Again, we’ve got the administration to back us on this.”

In addition to the library, ASEWU has also set goals for improving the PUB, one of which is to provide an interfaith space for the university’s faith-based groups.

“[It] was really a hot topic when it came to election time, and so we made a promise to the students that we’re going to make that happen. We’re now identifying a room in the PUB that we can convert into that, and as executives, we met with administration to get them on board, and they fully support us,” Hoffer said.

They hope to have that space sanctioned by the end of the school year.
ASEWU also already managed to put the PUB’s remodel on the university’s master plan.

“People have made attempts to accomplish that goal, but no one’s gotten any real traction. This year we sat down with administration and said,

‘This is what our students want,’” Hoffer said. “We’ve got the university administration behind us, and so we hope to, at the very least, have an idea of where the PUB remodel is going to go in the next few years.”
Students

Reflecting the desire to increase communication, ASEWU plans to “seek out ways to improve the inclusivity of our diverse student population.”

“We want to provide open forums,” Hoffer said. “We want to have more interaction with the students. I mean, I’m a fan of data and surveys and all that, but I’m a real big fan of just open communication and hearing from the students directly what they want, just so I’m armed with knowledge and my team is armed with knowledge.”

Accessibility to students is something Harrell wants the ASEWU to improve.

“Last year during the elections when we were out in the campus mall talking to people, we learned so many things from students that we never had before, so that’s really something we want to work on: getting out and being more accessible to them,” she said.
Riverpoint campus

ASEWU wants to continue to work to improve the experience at the Riverpoint campus.

Providing a recreation facility, most likely through means of a discounted contract with a gym in Spokane, is an idea they want to keep working on.

They also are looking to provide childcare and increase events for students on the Riverpoint campus.

“We’ve been in contact with ASWSU [Associated Students of Washington State University] down there, and they’re really on board to work with us this year,” Harrell said.

Harrell will also be holding office hours at the Riverpoint campus as a way to improve accessibility.

“We’ll have people down there able to talk to the students,” she said.
Student Representation

Last year ASEWU members felt their lobbying efforts in Olympia helped show legislation the importance of funding for higher education. This year they plan to continue fighting budget cuts.

“We were successful last year when we didn’t have any cuts to higher [education], but that was in the middle of a biennium year,” Hoffer said.

This year marks the beginning of a new biennium budget cycle, so cuts are going to be an issue for higher education.

“The beginning of a budget cycle is really where cuts are looked at in order to balance the budget. We’re just trying to show the state that we need this money and we do care, and they can’t do that to us,” Hoffer said.

Harrell said it helps that the Washington Student Association President Shelby Pelon also serves as legislative affairs representative for ASEWU.
She said that collaboratively they plan “to make sure that Eastern’s voice is heard over in Olympia this winter.”

Both Hoffer and Harrell feel confident and excited about this year.
“We have an awesome team. Everyone’s really determined to get things done,” Harrell said. “We’re already accomplishing some of our goals, just the smaller ones. [We’re] just growing momentum, and I’m excited to accomplish the bigger ones too.”