This letter is in response to an editorial in the Sept. 27 edition entitled “Student Participation: Can we improve?” As long serving members of the Undergraduate Student Government, we would like address some of the opinions the article expressed about USG, and do our best to convey our most important message:

As members of USG, we are your servants.

Every member of USG takes an oath in which we “pledge to serve the students of CWRU,” and that mentality of service is constantly at the forefront of our discussions and actions.

To that end, we are always trying to find better ways to fulfill that oath. We look at statistics such as a 68 percent approval rating of last year’s seniors, 3,000 votes on our moderator or a voter turnout that is, according to a University of Iowa study, 15.2 percent greater than the national average. We see those results, and we take no time to begin assessing how we can increase those numbers. We’ve tried flyers on campus and briefs in The Observer, we currently have open meetings, the moderator online and a regular newsletter that is sent to every undergraduate student. We work with the University’s office of Institutional Research to develop campuswide surveys on major issues, such as the tobacco-free policy. And we’re starting to invite more administrators to our meetings to join our discussions and have more communication between students and the administration.

USG has an awesome tool in our ability to connect to and work with administrators to bring student input to administrative decisions. Lend us your voice, and help us take full advantage of that tool.

Matt McKee and Connor Toomey are members of the Undergraduate Student Government. Get in touch with USG via the Moderator at usg.case.edu/moderator or by emailing cwru-usg@case.edu