Behind the Scenes of CSG with Emi Perdan & Liz Ruszkoski

Chatham Student Government (CSG) is Chatham’s student-elected and student-operated government body. They oversee undergraduate initiatives across campus and work closely with students, faculty, staff, and administration at Chatham. CSG is comprised of an executive board as well as class boards for first-years, sophomores, juniors, and seniors respectively. While elections for upperclass students take place in the spring, first-years hit the ground running with CSG and elect their class representatives in the early fall. In order to help incoming first-years get acquainted with CSG ASAP, we sat down with executive board members, Vice President of Student Finances, Emi Perdan and Vice President of Communications, Liz Ruszkoski to learn more about what CSG really does. Check it out below—

**VP of Communications and psychology major, Liz Ruszkoski**

To start, tell us a little bit about what Chatham Student Government is and how it functions on campus.

Emi Perdan: Student government connects students with different faculty members and administration as well as departments across campus [in order to] open up a dialogue and hopefully, solve problems. Students bring concerns to us, we address them, and find action steps to solve them.

Liz Ruszkoski: We're actually a lot bigger than people think. Each grade level has its own a CSG body. Emi and I are members of the Executive Board, which oversees all of the different class boards. We also have different committees. For instance, there is a food committee that deals primarily with issues that students may want to bring up about Anderson, Cafe Rachel, or Parkhurst in general. A lot of the complaints get filtered through us and we hand them off to the food committee. The food committee gets to meet with Parkhurst employees and talk through the issues.

How does a student come to be a member of CSG?

LR: When you come into orientation as a new student, there will be a point in time where people talk about CSG. There are currently no executive board positions open to first-years, but there is a first-year board which has all the positions open. Almost everything is now done through Brightspace. Each first-year will have the opportunity to click on their class’s student government elections, and under that tab, they'll be able to click and find out how to run for CSG, how the election process works, past initiatives that CSG has worked on, and a lot of general information. That is also where they will vote. If you're a first-year looking to run, you will speak to Dean of Students, Chris Purcell.

Do you need to be re-elected each year?

LR: None of our positions roll over into the next year. They are all re-elected positions which is really nice. It is just like local and state elections. If you feel that the current executive board or your class board is not advocating for you, you have the ability to run or vote in somebody else who may be better be suited for the position.

What are your responsibilities as members of CSG?

EP: My position is the Vice President of Student Finances; I am the executive treasurer in other words. I help manage student government's overall budget and all of the class budgets. Within the student government budget, each class can host events and I help them execute those with the [allotted] money. I am also the chair of the Undergraduate Budget Committee, also known as UBC. At the UBC meetings, I take in student funding requests in various forms and record that information. Students come in to speak and then I oversee my committee to vote and approve or deny funding requests.

LR: I am the Vice President of Communications on the Executive Board. I like to say it's the fun job. I'm somebody who likes to communicate and discuss. I like to be the face to the people and that's what the position was described to me as. I not only communicate with the student body and the faculty and staff, I also communicate with CSG itself. I gather up information from our class board and executive board meetings and distribute it to the student body and those who need it. If we make decisions on CSG that affect the student body, it is likely me that you would hear it from.

“The number one thing for me is connection. Being able to bring students, faculty, and administration together towards a common goal is so fun. A lot of people will complain about things wrong at Chatham but not do anything [to fix them]. If you complain to me, I’m gonna get it done with the connections that I’ve built and help build a better community for us.”

— Emi Perdan

Tell us about the distinctions between the Executive Board and Class Boards. What are the different duties for each?

EP: The Class Boards try to do a couple of projects every year, something that they're going to devote a lot of time to. Maybe their classmates have come to them and said we really need to do X project. The executive board is always a touch point if the class board can't necessarily find the support that they need. The executive board bridges the gap between administration and students. Since many of us are upperclass students, we sometimes have more established relationships with administration. The executive board dictates what we want to focus on throughout the year and keeps us on track in terms of those larger goals.

LR: I would describe it as a ladder system. Our students have an idea, something that they really want to happen on this campus. They start mingling amongst themselves and it gets brought to a class government meeting. If a first-year really wants to have X program, they bring it to the first-year board. The first-year board discusses it and then brings it to the executive board. The executive board talks about it, and then brings it to faculty and staff and the people above us. It goes higher and higher until you get the approval that you're looking for.

Overall, I think that the executive board members are a resource to the class boards. It is a lot easier for Emi and I to approach a faculty or staff member and say, we talked about this the other day in CSG let's see if we can get the ball rolling, rather than a first-year who might not know that person. I personally really like bringing the first-years along with me. We hope that they will join eventually join the executive board and be those people going to the faculty and the staff.

What are the benefits of being a member of CSG?

LR: I am actually only a second year student at Chatham but I am a senior. I went to community college for two years before I came here. I was one of those people who didn't really know a lot of familiar faces. I am also in the Laughlin Women and Femmes’ Living Learning Community. We noticed an issue on campus last year and decided to start the period poverty project. I was super passionate about the idea that nobody on this campus should experience insecurity when it came to menstrual supplies. We wanted Chatham to purchase machines to put in every bathroom across our campuses with pads, tampons, and menstrual supplies that students could access for free.

I wasn't in CSG last year so it was a little more difficult because I didn't understand the ladder. I didn't understand where things had to go and how they were approved. My request was approved through CSG which made me want to join CSG. Something that I was really passionate about that would help so many people came true. If you're excited about something, those of us in CSG want to be excited about it too.

Anything else you’d like to share?

LR: Please come talk to your CSG members. We're here to talk. Even outside of our positions, we're real people that like to talk and support students. Our meetings are actually open to the student body, unless it is a closed meeting or otherwise stated. You just have to email one of us and let us know. If a first-year ever thinks, I kind of want to do CSG but I'm not really sure what it is about, come sit on a meeting and see what we do. CSG looks great on a resume. You learn communication skills, organizational skills, and time management skills—all great things will help you in the future.

EP: If you don't win your first election, do not let that discourage you. Stay engaged with student government as a student. If we see that engagement, we will be more likely to bring you in if there is a vacancy somewhere down the line.

Special thanks to Emi and Liz for sharing their insight. Take a closer look at CSG on the Chatham Student Government website.