ASUN plans year with budget concerns, new ideas

While students were off enjoying the summer, the members of the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska were hard at work planning goals and projects for the fall semester.

One of the main focuses for ASUN this year is the Academic Planning Committee, said ASUN president Megan Collins, a senior business major who is also a student representative on the committee. This committee goes over budget recommendations and makes decisions to approve budget cuts or to find an alternative way to save money.

This year the committee will have to help the chancellor cut $3.7 million dollars from the budget. The committee met in June to talk with various groups and deliberate where to slash budgets. The committee will meet again in September before sending recommendations to the chancellor.

ASUN is also hoping to finish a peer education center. Collins said they will be hiring a coordinator and interns for the center soon.

"Hopefully we'll get the service up and running," she said, adding ASUN is going to push for the success of the center.

This year ASUN is also planning on returning to projects it was unable to successfully complete last year. One of those projects was a referendum that student voters didn't pass that proposed raising student fees to help pay for repairs for the East Campus recreation center and the University Health Center.

Students want lower fees, Collins said, and ASUN will be looking at the budget to come up with a different solution to the problem.

The members of the ruling CONNECT Party ran on the platform of sustainability and expanding campus nightlife. This semester, ASUN is looking to keep those promises.

"We're going to go to task this semester," said Amanda Crook, a senior political science major and external vice president of ASUN.

Collins said ASUN hoped to not only make the focus on UNL traditions even bigger but to also make students more aware of them.

One of those traditions is a student blackout, where students wear only black clothes during a Husker football game. Crook said this year ASUN is planning on making the blackout stadium-wide.

Another way Crook wants to enhance tradition is to let students know about the people campus buildings are named after. For example, Charles Bessey, who is the namesake for Bessey Hall, was a former dean of UNL's industrial college in the late 1800s.

"Charles Bessey was inducted in the Nebraska Hall of Fame this summer," Crook said. "He's a big deal."

The Campus Nightlife committee has several events coming up this fall. Collins said she hopes to build momentum and hopefully create more events on the weekends.

Other focuses for the fall semester include reviewing the ASUN program NU On Wheels and ensuring it is sustainable, filling spots in the freshmen and interning programs, working on the Homecoming dance and communicating with students.

"I think every (ASUN) administration has high hopes for better communication with students," Collins said.

kimbuckley@dailynebraskan.com