The ASSU has launched a new peer-to-peer advocacy program intended to connect students with members of the ASSU who can help solve problems students have with the University.
According to its founder, Senator Dan DeLong ’13, the program fills a gap in the current responsibilities of the ASSU by providing constituent services.
“If you look at elected officials at a local level, a state level and even at the national level, a large part of their responsibility is to provide constituent services,” DeLong said.
These services can include advocating on behalf of students with administrators and trying to solve their problems.
The idea for this program came to DeLong during his senate campaign. During that process, multiple students requested help settling small financial disputes with the University, mostly related to billing and fees. DeLong was able to help them by emailing these administrators on the students’ behalf.
“I don’t think students are aware [they] can come to ASSU representatives in the Exec or the Senate to help get their Stanford-related issues resolved,” DeLong said.
After acquiring $70 in funding from the Undergraduate Senate’s discretionary fund, business cards with a phone number and email address were printed and handed out to senators at Tuesday’s Senate meeting.
“Right now the ASSU does an incredibly poor job of reaching out to students,” DeLong said, adding that he hopes that by partnering with the ASSU Executive, students will take advantage of this program.
The program’s aspirations are strikingly similar to those of The Stanford Ombuds, which also seeks to help students, as well as faculty and administrators, solve conflicts on campus. However DeLong says this program will not be a mediation service like The Ombuds.
“This is what I call a facilitation service,” DeLong said. “Students will feel more comfortable coming to a peer for help and advice than going to someone they see as another member of University staff.”
DeLong concedes that senators have no real experience in these issues. However, he says that members of the ASSU can learn on the job and use their network of administrative contacts to help students.
Like The Ombuds, this program is intended to be confidential, protecting students’ information. However the ASSU has strict policies regarding confidentiality, which could make this aspect of the program difficult to carry out.
One potential solution to the problem would be passing a bill labeling all information in this program, “proprietary business information” and thus removing it from the scope of the Freedom of Information Act; however, this approach was abandoned.
Instead, the names of the students and the representatives who received their call will be available for anyone who requests the information, but their conversations will be private.
The program will only initially be accessible via DeLong, ASSU Executive President Michael Cruz ’12 and Vice President Stewart Macgregor-Dennis ’13, Senate Chair Rafael Vazquez ’12, Senate Deputy Chair Dan Ashton ’14 and Senator Brianna Pang ’13 of the Advocacy committee.
The number of people with access may expand as more senators express interest. However DeLong said he only wants active participants to have access to the account.
Emails inquiring about the program can be sent to [email protected], and calls or texts to 650-468-0195.