It’s a bad idea whose time should never come.
Student governments at N.C. State and other UNC-System schools have repeatedly threatened or acted to withdraw from the Association of Student Governments because they said “we don’t need ASG.”
This is a bad argument for a bad idea because it’s predicated on the wrong question. The question is not what ASG can do for N.C. State, but what N.C. State can do for ASG.
The tired refrain that ASG is “ineffective” or “a waste of money” assumes that the ASG is some kind of special interest group or lobbying organization that has failed to do its job.
That is not what the ASG is. It is a constituent body in the system of shared governance of public higher education in North Carolina.
A shared governance body doesn’t represent a special interest. It is a participant in a conversation that is meant to produce thoughtful and robust advice to those who are accountable for a public good. A shared governance body has a “seat at the table.”
The metaphor is especially apt. An invitation to a seat at the table means your partners hope you will bring a useful perspective to the conversation. It also means that they trust you will be judicious in your participation, and that you will maintain a steadfast dedication to the work, even — and perhaps especially — when the conversation is difficult, contentious and frustrating.
This is the work for which the ASG — and the Staff Assembly, Faculty Assembly, and committees of chancellors and provosts from across the system — exist. And the reason that ASG, like every other shared governance body, needs the participation of N.C. State — and every institution in the system — is because each school has a unique and distinctive mission in North Carolina public higher education.
Understanding these responsibilities is why campus staff, faculty and administrators don’t threaten (let alone act) to withdraw from their system-wide shared governance bodies. They know that to shirk this work would be reckless, negligent and narrow-minded. What is baffling is that student governments are the only participants in shared governance who don’t grasp this fact.
So step up, N.C. State, and tell your representatives that the Wolfpack doesn’t shirk! It is time to finally put to rest this bad idea whose time should never come, and for N.C. State to help ASG be everything its shared governance partners hope it can be.
Leonard is Chair-Elect of the UNC (system) Faculty Assembly, and Associate Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill.
