President Kaiser and Vice President Elwood Outlines What’s Next
Courtesy Photo by ASUW
Being the sole executive ticket up for election last cycle, President Sam Kaiser and Vice President Ashlyn Elwood started the year with new ideas and a new University President. In an interview with Student Media they were able to outline the plans they had for their term, current accomplishments, and detail the work they’ve done with University President Shane Reeves.
Only a few weeks in, the goals they outlined during their campaign are now being put to action as they seek to overcome students’ apathy towards the Associated Students of the University of Wyoming (ASUW). The first way they are tackling this is by working to reduce the amount of emails sent to students by ASUW, bringing careful consideration towards their communication.
”Something that we’ve found is really successful in our model is making sure that we’re messaging the right things to students. So understanding that they don’t want to be inundated with emails every single day about things that don’t actually pertain or benefit them on campus,” said President Kaiser.
So far, The two have also kept to their campaign promise to table in the Union every month to hear directly from students. President Kaiser said that this intentionality of programming was one topic brought up to them when they tabled.
Along with that were students involved in Greek life looking to be represented in the conversations happening in the student senate, ”So what can we do as ASUW to support the community, and what can we do to maybe evaluate the community, maybe the shortfalls, maybe the benefits, and really make sure we’re having those conversations?”
The two said they were going to address these tabling conversations more directly in a video posted to ASUW’s social media in the coming days.
Of the initiatives the two student executives were excited to be implemented this term, they highlighted the Lasso internship program. After receiving approval and funding of around $2.3 million from the Wyoming Legislature last year, the program will look to grow the amount of paid internships available to UW students using these state funds.
”We expect a full rollout near the end of October, early November, as a report is due to the legislature on the progress of the Lasso Program, now our paid internship model,” said President Kaiser.
Vice President Elwood emphasized that this Lasso program was created with the consideration and collaboration of the independent colleges on campus, “Even though specific colleges have their own paid internship program already, they thought that this would be a great addition while still being able to maintain each college’s autonomy.”
Looking towards what’s next, Kaiser and Elwood have their attention on representing students in AI policy, ”ASUW is currently gearing up to write a resolution surrounding AI, digital literacy, and emerging technology opinions,” said President Kaiser.
Elwood clarified that while the University is looking to bring AI to the classroom, ASUW wants to make sure that the students are represented in those decisions. In their view, this digital literacy is needed to keep the university competitive in recruitment efforts, but that doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t be included in the conversation.
“If a student comes to the University of Wyoming, eventually they’ll be able to say that they have these soft skills for the professional world to be able to use AI, regardless of their personal opinion on it, because they went to the University of Wyoming over another institution. So we’re excited to hopefully just better establish ASUW’s stance on AI as well as President Reeves and his administration’s stance on AI,” clarified Elwood.
The two said that they have been working closely with President Reeves as he gets acclimated to the campus. President Kaiser has been a consistent character in President Reeves’ short form videos, but Kaiser points out that this collaboration goes beyond the shorts.
”I think a lot of students only see those social media posts, looks like I’m being maybe held at gunpoint against my will,” President Kaiser joked, “I think what people don’t see is that it allows President Reeves and myself to be together to have conversations while filming.”
Kaiser outlined that the University President has been pretty open in communication, even pulling on the two’s ear to get insight into university culture.
While less visible, Vice President Elwood has been working closely with President Reeves as well. She has even invited him to provide a “special event presentation” to the senate in December.
”Obviosly, being in our positions, we get more face time with him, but making sure that it’s funneled down into the rest of our student representatives is very exciting,” Vice President Elwood highlighted.
Both Kaiser and Elwood held high spirits talking about their goals and accomplishments so far. As the semester and academic year continue, the ASUW executive branch still has a lot to be done.
