Associated Students of Seattle Pacific serves as the official student government at SPU. Its primary purpose is to ensure student voices are heard and to promote community spirit. But in recent months, ASSP senate has faced challenges relating to staffing shortages and overall reduced interest in student leadership among other internal issues. However, ASSP hopes to address certain issues they have experienced in the past, especially those revolving around communication, by implementing a new cabinet structure for ASSP in the future. 

Third year politics, philosophy, and economics (PPE) major Maxwell Hayden helped plan the bill that will help organize future ASSP cabinets. Hayden describes the overall idea of the new ASSP structure, which was passed on March 6 and is set to be implemented next year. 

“The ASSP cabinet will be reformed into a model in which the president oversees six positions, each of which has different roles within the student body. All of these roles will meet up and act as a voting member in [the] senate, save for the executive VP,” Hayden said. 

Evan Teigland is a third-year English and film double major and was involved in passing the bill. He was able to have an inside perspective during the proposal of this bill. 

“The proposal’s main goal was to increase the communication between the main roles of ASSP for the sake of having smoother coordination between all these scattered roles. There have been concerns that the current model is disjointed, and it’s hard to get everyone on the same page,” Teigland said. 

For the past several years, there has been a decline in the number of applications for positions in the senate. While student senators hope to improve communication among student leaders, they also hope to encourage more students outside of leadership positions to want to join them for the first time. Because of this, the passing of this bill is bringing much enthusiasm and hope among ASSP. Fourth year physics and mechanical engineering double major and current ASSP president, Carrie Cox, believes this new plan will resolve some of the internal issues ASSP has been experiencing recently. 

“I think this is super exciting for ASSP’s structure. It will help fix a lot of the issues that we’ve experienced with poor communication, especially between clubs, finance and upper leadership,” Cox said. 

As president, Cox played a major role in the planning of this bill, and explains the roles that the 2023-24 president, Rayna Martin, and future ASSP senate will have when it comes to working together. Cox hopes to see more solidarity in the upcoming cabinet. 

“This new cabinet structure will facilitate relationships between the treasurer, club coordinator and so on with bi-weekly meetings, making different areas more aware of what other parts of ASSP are doing. This will be coordinated by the president, while the communications manager will control our operations,” Cox said. “Historically, we had a similar structure, but it was changed two years ago and side effects are beginning to appear.”

With this structure, many ASSP figures will have roles in the cabinet. This includes the vice president of intercultural affairs, treasurer, the ministries representative and many other roles. However, there are currently discussions centered around how the dispersion of power within the senate will work, as many have grown concerned with a potential imbalance of power. 

“The biggest problem that people have had with the proposal was that the six voting members from the bill would be able to strongarm more proposals in ways that wouldn’t accurately represent the student body. I can sympathize, and there is currently an amendment being discussed to mitigate this problem,” Teigland said. 

ASSP is currently hiring for cabinet positions for the 2023 spring quarter. Additional information to apply for a position, as well as information on how to get involved with ASSP can be found at spu.edu/assp.