ASMSU’s governmental affairs leadership is building up their new blog to help keep students in touch with governmental issues that have the potential to impact them.
ASMSU is MSU’s undergraduate student government.
The blog is a joint project of Student Assembly’s Emily Serkaian, director of governmental affairs; Rosie Jones, governmental affairs community liaison; and Ariadna Ginez, governmental affairs state liaison.
“Governmental affairs formed the blog for people to interact with them and to have constant communication with students and inform them of what’s going on in the government,” ASMSU spokesperson Elizabeth Brumfield said.
Started in the summer, the team of three is working to help the blog get legs this fall as the semester and the Legislature are back in session, Serkaian said.
“I just thought it would be a really good way to help us reach out to students and within ourselves,” Serkaian said. “Once a week, each position is responsible for a blog post about something in the government that’s important to students or relates to students.”
Serkaian said she came up with the idea for the blog when applying for her position last year.
“Topics for the blog posts come from meetings the group has attended, current legislation, news articles or anything else that speaks to students about the government,” she said.
So far, the team has discussed the basics of renter’s insurance, a Congressional vote about education and welfare and the platforms of the two candidates left in the November gubernatorial race, among others.
“It’s all about helping to bring issues that might not seem relevant to students and really bringing them home,” Serkaian said.
Besides being a way to reach out to students, Serkaian said the blog also is a way to help connect ASMSU members.
“Within our organization as well, if something’s going on we can post it on the blog and it’s an easy way for other staffers to find out about the issues if they can’t find us in the office,” she said.
Matt York, Student Assembly internal vice chairperson, said a blog can be a better way to touch base with students because it’s something they can access at their convenience, as well as giving them the opportunity to comment back.
“If you see an e-mail in your inbox, people don’t tend to read it unless it deals with work or class because they have too much going on,” York said. “But if they’re interested and motivated enough, people will go on the blog and comment on things they feel strongly about.”
ASMSU has considered starting an organization-wide blog in the past, but so far, it has not decided whether to go ahead with it, Brumfield said.
The blog can be accessed at asmsugovaffairs.wordpress.com.
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