UNC students will once again make a decision about the University’s place in the long-criticized UNC-system Association of Student Governments.
From midnight to 5 p.m. today, students can go to studentlife.unc.edu and vote on whether they want the University to stay in the student advocacy organization, which is composed of delegates from all 17 system schools and funded by a $1 annual student fee. UNC students contributed $27,069 to ASG this year.
Robert Windsor, chairman of the UNC Board of Elections, said ASG will be the first item on the ballot, followed by Homecoming elections and Student Congress special elections.
In 2012, the last time students voted on ASG membership, the ballot had the referendum listed last. Students voted to stay in the association. This time, Windsor said he put the referendum on the top of the ballot due to its importance.
Speaker of Student Congress Connor Brady said he is proud of the advocacy efforts surrounding the vote — like the official email sent to all students Thursday.
Still, in an online Daily Tar Heel survey of 34 random students, 14 were unaware of the vote, and several in that group did not know what the association was. In the survey, four students said they wanted to leave ASG and 15 wanted to stay in.
“If we leave ASG, we will have no say in what goes on and what could be changed,” said sophomore Taylor Pulley in the survey. “It’s only a $1 student fee that will not make or break any of us.”
Members of UNC Student Congress were also surveyed — of the 15 representatives who answered, four said they will vote to stay in ASG, while the other 11 said they will vote to leave it.
ASG President Robert Nunnery said UNC would lose a voice if it pulls out of the association, especially because it advocates for student issues, like gender-neutral housing, which was banned by the system Board of Governors. The association is currently discussing alternatives.
