UC director offers services to Senate

For the second meeting of the semester, Anthony David Adams, executive director of United Council, talked to the Senate about extending UC resources to non-member campuses like UW-River Falls.

"If we [UC] have resources we can share, we want to give it to River Falls," Adams said. "I'm here to get a feel for the issues of non-members of UC."

Adams said he has only been in the position for two months, and he also wants to be available for any campus in Wisconsin.

He talked about three major campaigns UC is focusing on for the semester that will be offered to all universities in the state, including non-members.

The first is Get Out and Vote, a campaign to drive the number of student voters to more than 30,000 across the state.

"Wisconsin was the second state to have the largest number of student voters," Adams said. "We lost of Minnesota, but this year we are going to beat them."

UC offers to all member and non-member campuses an electronic data system to compute all the information that is collected on campuses about students who are just registering for the first time.

The amount of time it takes to enter in all the data is time consuming and tedious, Adams said.

With campuses sending the information to UC, it will allow much more time for reaching students who still need to register.

The data will be sent back to universities with all the information in an electronic form that is graphed and organized.

"This will help maximize the hours of getting out there to the students," he said.

Adams said UC is still campaigning to get a tuition freeze. Last year, the association did not get the freeze it was aiming for, but did get the Board of Regents to lower the total amount it would have increased to.
Tuition has increased by 82 percent in the past six years throughout the UW System, Adams said.

He said students are working up to three part-time jobs to pay for the hikes in tuition, cutting away from the time that can be spent on campus involvement.

The final issue UC is campaigning for is a vote ‘no' on the marriage amendment Nov. 7.

Adams said the association is educating students by partnering with Fair Wisconsin.

Since UW-RF voted to leave UC in the spring, Adams said as a non-member, the campus won't be allowed to select campaigns to advocate in Madison or Washington, D.C., but UC is more than willing to work with the campus on other issues that may arise in the future.

"My primary reason for being here today is because I would like to continue working with River Falls," Adams said. "Also, it is to make sure River Falls is still connected to other members of the UC."

Other Senate news

Leadership Development and Programming Board Chair Natalie Hagberg said Student Organizations Committee has 111 recognized student organizations at the beginning of the semester. Hagberg said homecoming booklets are now available at the Leadership Center for students to pick up. Homecoming is scheduled for Oct. 16-21. With the planning of the week's events underway, Hagberg said, "It's going to be an awesome homecoming."

Student Senate passed a motion Sept. 12, welcoming a new advisor for 2006-2007. Gregg Heinselman, executive director of student services and programs, volunteered to take the position after Vicki Hajewski could no longer advise Senate due to conflicting schedules and added workload for the semester, said Senate President Joe Eggers.