The mission of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) is to serve as a representative voice in university affairs, advocating for the student body by addressing relevant topics, engaging students and enacting change. However, in recent years—and amidst many major disruptions on campus and in the nation—USG has fallen short of this mission. If the organization is to truly fulfill its purpose, it must undergo a complete transformation—one that prioritizes student voices and restores its role as a force for positive action on campus.
While USG is not obligated to be a perfect organization, the most recent administrations have not met the organization’s former capability. In March 2020, as Case Western Reserve University closed its doors during the COVID-19 pandemic, USG was instrumental in creating and managing the Student Activities Fee COVID-19 Emergency Fund, with over $350,000 in donations from various clubs on campus. In 2021, USG helped create the Physical Resource Center, now named the CWRU Community Pantry. That same year, they started the Swipe Out Hunger campaign, which allows CWRU students to donate meal swipes to students with food insecurity. In perhaps the organization’s crowning accomplishment, USG convinced then-Interim President Scott Cowen to divest from fossil fuels in the university’s endowment. Zooming out, USG can also be credited for a slew of other changes that continue to be used by and impact CWRU students. For example, in 2016 they successfully lobbied for the use of three meal swipes per week in locations such as Tinkham Veale University Center, and in the 1990s, USG opposed the creation of plus/minus grading—an effort that still reflects on students’ transcripts.
Despite its storied history, today, students have come to expect the bare minimum from USG— a governmental structure in name only.
One of USG’s attempts to improve transparency with the student body this academic year has been its initiative tracker, which makes a regular appearance in their newsletters. While this effort sounds promising on paper, upon investigation, many of the “initiatives” were vague and poorly documented—undoubtedly leaving many students with many of the same questions as before. According to the tracker, only four initiatives have been classified as “complete,” all of which are within the Communications Committee; none of the other four committees has completed any of their initiatives after over a semester of work.
Even some of the initiatives marked as ”in progress” are attempts to rejuvenate unsuccessful programs that have been happening for years. For instance, third-year Vice President of Student Life Zelene Desire reported to The Observer that USG will host another Feedback Friday and town hall. At the time of publication, neither has been advertised, and both have previously struggled to produce meaningful engagement with the student body.
The tracker highlights that many of USG’s initiatives hinge on obtaining student feedback, either through town halls, email correspondence or USG’s tried and true surveys. While surveys are easy to create and deliver, any good data scientist—of which there are many on this campus—would tell you that survey questions must be deliberately designed and reviewed to be valuable. When surveys fail to attract meaningful feedback, other avenues should be considered. Since the start of the academic year, the student body has seen at least four short surveys litter the USG newsletters, from new prayer rooms to campus application updates. Despite their differing purposes, they share some common features: short, unfocused and with no follow-up. This trend is reflected in the most recent campus survey that asks students to share their fears and experiences with the new executive orders and federal policy changes. Aside from the generic question style, the impersonal nature of using an online survey to discuss a highly personal situation calls into question USG’s commitment and care for students. Since USG has continued to employ tired methods of engagement—despite the lack of any evident product—all of their effort feels like a constant, unbreakable cycle of ineffectual questionnaires.
While discussing USG’s stagnation, a former executive member shared their annoyance at the current operations, saying that the organization was frustrating: “Especially the past year, where we were not able to come to a consensus on topics that affected the entire campus community. At times, it felt as if we had so much conversation yet no tangible action out of it, and as time went on, I became more and more frustrated with and disheartened by the organization.”
This shift, from harbinger of change to harbinger of disappointment, starts with the people who comprise USG and how these representatives are put into power.
When an organization holds significant influence on campus, the elections process to appoint those members must be robust. Between a strict timeline of events and rules for campaigning, at its surface, USG does take its elections process seriously. However, do we as students feel the same way? On a campus of over 6,000 undergraduates, many of whom put immense stock in the election of our national political offices, one would expect strong participation in this election, representing a truly democratic vote. To put this into context, 69.9% of students voted in the 2020 federal election, while only 708 students voted in the USG 2024-2025 election—barely more than 10%. Of these students, only 608 cast votes for the president position. Within each of the college caucuses, the vote share was even more startling: For example, out of the 953 undergraduate business students, only 25 voted for a Weatherhead School of Management representative.
USG has recently struggled to engage students in their activities, with irregular newsletters, poor posting around campus and a highly inactive Instagram page—this lackluster social media presence remains unchanged. The poor election turnout reflects not only a growing apathy toward USG as an organization but also their increasingly limited engagement with the student body; students either don’t know about the election or simply do not care. So much of last year’s election, thus, hinged on word of mouth, where voters seemed to choose candidates based on character rather than experience. The election of the current president highlights this shift to electing candidates with ambitious promises rather than those with the administrative knowhow to excel in the role. Previously serving as one of USG’s College of Arts and Sciences Representatives, fourth-year student Amman Spencer was the candidate with the lowest-ranked position on the ballot, yet he won the election with a majority of votes cast. Last fall, in an interview with The Observer, Spencer mentioned several initiatives he hoped to engage with during his presidency, and his main focus aimed at improving engagement and transparency with the student body. As we look back, now past the halfway mark of the academic year, his promises to improve one-on-one communication, provide regular updates in the newsletters and increase tuition transparency have failed to materialize. Even before publication of this Editorial, Spencer was asked for comment on the state of USG and the ongoing initiatives of his administration, but no response was provided.
USG’s participation woes go deeper than just voter turnout: There is also declining interest in becoming a member at all. As of this article’s publication, 12 seats in the General Assembly (GA) remain empty, including over 36% of the seats allocated to the Case School of Engineering. These unfilled positions not only mean skewed representation but also make it difficult for USG to meet quorum at their meetings. Of the six GA meetings held last semester—once first-year representatives were elected—only two-thirds met this minimum attendance.
Something needs to change, and soon. With each passing year, there are more and more missed opportunities to connect with the campus community and serve as an advocate. It would be a failure on us, as students, to stand by this disservice without complaint, allowing others to tarnish what it means to wear the “student leader” title. At a place like CWRU, where passion and dedication run deep, we would like to believe USG has the potential to do better and be better for its student body. Starting at the top, USG needs to take deliberate steps to reflect on past errors, strategizing how best to reengage students and USG itself in the workings of campus. At the same time, we urge that students frustrated with this state of affairs reinvest themselves in student government, rising above the persuasive apathy on this campus.
The decline of USG is already in motion, and we hope that by expressing our concerns, this organization and its constituents will recognize a need for reform. Building a student government that is viewed as a respected body with purpose and pride must start with student leaders, those elected to serve, and should be bolstered by a student body that is unafraid to hold this organization accountable.