The UNC System Association of Student Governments met at N.C. State this weekend for the first time in three years, its members hoping to reverse the turmoil it has been in for the past few months.
Former ASG Senior Vice President Cody Grasty from Appalachian State University was sworn in as the new president of the organization after the resignation of the previous president, Cole Jones, who was pressured to resign.
Jones is appealing an Aug. 1 criminal assault conviction. The new president will take his seat on the Board of Governors.
“I know there’s a lot of circumstances leading to this, but when Cole and I ran together, we knew this might be a possibility,” Grasty said.
The association’s debate over the validity of Jones’ presidency, in addition to members’ skepticism of the organization’s capabilities, caused ASG to lose quorum at its September meeting, which it regained at this weekend’s meeting.
“There was tension there [at the meeting],” Grasty said. “But I believe the meeting was successful.”
Grasty said the organization established a task force at the recommendation of the General Administration, which is supposed to review the organization’s work and get it back on track to focus on the needs of students.
“We’re pushing ahead despite recent setbacks in the past couple of months,” Grasty said. “We have shown that we can accomplish things in our meetings.”
He also said this month’s meeting was a brainstorming session with the members, looking at policy revisions and making improvements.
“We’ve got to step it up. We walked away with a lot of good ideas that we hadn’t been thinking about,” Grasty said.
Because of the tension and unfocused vision recently, Student Body President Bobby Mills proposed a resolution to dissolve the General Assembly, the membership body of the association, and just keep the Council of Student Body Presidents.
All students in the UNC system pay a $1 yearly fee to the association, contributing to the association’s quarter million dollar budget.
“I felt that we have not used the fee wisely the past three years,” Mills, a junior in political science and economics, said.
He said, that way, the presidents can assess what went wrong and how to get back on track without using students’ fee money.
James Hankins, ASG Associate Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, said members raised concerns at the meeting about the motion, which was tabled until further discussion takes place.
“Many of the Student Body Presidents on the Council of Student Body Presidents felt they didn’t have a clear idea of where some of the money was going,” Hankins, a senior in political science and social studies education at NCSU, said.
Grasty admitted that Mills’ idea was not a unique one.
“That’s been on the minds of presidents in the past. He vocalized something that was on people’s minds,” he said.
Although Grasty did not agree with the idea, he said he understood where Mills was coming from.
“It might have jumped the gun a little bit, but nonetheless, that’s how he feels and that needs to be taken into the task force as well,” he said.
According to Grasty though, the 68-member General Assembly serves a purpose in the organization.