Certified Student Leader Program: Colossal Waste of Time and Money
Many schools' student governments are right now in the beginning stages of planning events for the fall. Let me heartily recommend they stay away from one in particular: The Certified Student Leader Program.
CSL is the product of the National Conference on Student Leadership (which is a division of glossy college magazine factory Magna Publications). It's presented as either a stand-alone conference or as a tack-on to its larger tri-annual NCSL.
It's the ultimate resume-padder: shell out a hundred dollars per person, take several workshops and presentations over a weekend, complete a written multiple-choice exam, and this is what you get:
- official CSL certificate
- parliamentary procedure packet, including useful reference tools
- award folder for displaying the CSL certificate
- press release that can be sent to college and hometown newspapers
- CSL portfolio
- CSL pin
Future bureaucrats of america, rejoice! We now have a certification process for determining who is and isn't a student leader!
As someone who went through the CSL program several years ago (at least I enjoyed Vegas!) with two of his fellow student government officials, let me tell you: it's a terrible, horrible waste of time. We were sent there to evaluate the program to see if we should bring it to our campus so more students could go through it, and all three of us gave overwhelmingly negative reviews. The curriculum is depressingly simplistic, with much of it tired physical metaphors that are then painfully shoehorned into whatever topic we were discussing (for example, in one session we spent the better part of 45 minutes partnered up, with one person blindfolded and the other person only able to tell the first how to navigate an impromptu obstacle course in the room - then the facilitator waxed poeting for a further 15 minutes on how it was an analogy for problems we encounter communicating to others).
And of course there was detailed coverage of Robert's Rules of Order, one of the most disempowering and stratifying decisionmaking processes ever devised. But this wasn't your average Robert's Rules overview: it was a scripted "comedy" performed by audience members dressed up as various Looney Tunes members.
Now I understand that not everyone is on board with student power, or trying to increase democracy on campus, but even for those firmly entrenched in the status quo and chummy with administrators, this can't have been a productive "conference."
Like a lot of these high-gloss, low-content conferences and associations (ASGA comes to mind), it's entirely a money-making scheme.
So, what's a good student conference?
I can think of several off the top of my head:
- Young People For's National Summit
- United States Students Association's Grassroots Organizing Weekend (GROW)
- Campus Camp Wellstone
What other student conferences aren't good? (I'll be posting more about these later on)
- Anything put on by ASGA - it's entirely corporate and bureaucratic in conception and emphasis (in many ways it's the right-wing version of USSA).
- The AntiConference - As their site says, "Work with a team who uses the real world Business Approach to Student Leadership".
Comments
You're wrong about ASGA
The American Student Government Association's objective is to help student governments improve in their effectiveness so that they can be more influential advocates on the issues they choose to champion.
Our mission is to provide student governments (we have nearly 900 member institutions, nearly four times the size of USSA) with knowledge, research, training, and resources that can help them improve campus participation, raise voter turnout in their elections, gain more influence through service on college committees, and more. Over time, we believe that a stronger local student government can be a more effective advocate on bigger issues beyond campups, including state and federal issues.
Our 10 conferences are very practical in helping student governments improve in these ways and provide tools that students and advisors can take back to their campuses and untilize.
You've never been to an ASGA conference, so who are you to make a blanket statement that ASGA is "entirely corporate and bureaucratic in conception?" I'm not even sure what that means.
ASGA is hardly bureaucratic. When one of our members contacts us, we're immediately available to them and act on their requests. When a member requests research from us, we complete it within days. Our members get immediate attention from us and don't have to wade through any bureaucracy.
Since we're not political and don't take stands on issues, calling ASGA the "right-wing version of USSA" is just ignorant and ignores the facts listed above. ASGA DOES NOT take political stances on any issues. Our mission is to provide student governments with knowledge and resources they can implement to be more effective advocates on the issues they choose to champion!
"Over time, we believe that a
"Over time, we believe that a stronger local student government can be a more effective advocate on bigger issues beyond campups, including state and federal issues."
That's a laudable statement.
I'd attend your conferences if they weren't hundreds of dollars ($600+ for on-site registration? You're kidding me!), or if they had some kind of sliding scale based on ability to pay.
But thanks to the wonderful resources of talking to past attendees and member student governments, and of course looking at materials they've received, I've been able to get a pretty decent handle on ASGA.
You're still wrong about ASGA!
We produce 10 conferences. Some cost less than $100, and even less when schools register several students.
Even our national conference can cost about $300 when student leaders plan ahead and are good stewards of the money they're entrusted with. They can plan ahead and get the "early-bird" discounts that are on a "sliding scale." The earlier they register, the less the cost.
Why does the national conference cost $300? The simple reason: our presenters are skilled PROFESSIONAL presenters who also happen to be knowledgable, successful former student government leaders and/or advisors themselves. Attendees at ASGA conferences are getting training from professionals who have presenting skill (don't discount the importance of how material is delivered to maximize learning) and also significant experience and breadth of knowledge of precdent nationwide. That makes ASGA different than any other organization with regard to the depth and breadth of material covered at conferences.
Which past attendees have you talked with? I don't trust your very imprecise and non-specific criticism of the "materials they've received." I doubt seriously that you've talked to anyone outside of a few former classmates at one school. We have literally thousands of students attending our training conferences every year. While we aim to serve all of them with tangible ideas, knowledge, and practical tips they can bring back to their campuses, admittedly not everyone benefits at the same level for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, students come to the conference with an inappropriately arrogant attiude and aren't receptive like they should be to really benefit. Most students greatly benefit in very tangible ways with knowledge gleaned from ASGA training.
I consider your criticism invalid until you can produce specifics about what exactly you feel is "inferior."
I aleady demolished your so-called argument about ASGA being the "right-wing" version of USSA. With all due respect, you just don't know what you're talking about, haven't done your homework, and are not basing your comments on facts. It's easy to criticize but harder to back that up with facts.
More facts about ASGA
Also, ASGA produces 10 training conferences for student government members and advisors. One costs less than $100 per person. Most are in the $139-$199 range. If you register early, the cost can be very low. We're conscious that not every SG can travel across the country or has funds to stay overnight in hotels. So 8 of our 10 conferences are held on Saturday so that students won't miss school. The locations are accessible for most institutions across the nation by car (the exception is the sparsely populated western states).
After every conference, we collect evaluations and continually make enhancements and improvements to better serve our attendees. But almost unilaterally, the evaluations are glowing about what they learned, how much they gained, what information they'll bring back to campus. The criticism we get in the evaluations is usually confined to the food at lunch, directions to the conference location (which are always clearly provided at the conference web site via pdf and written directions), and sometimes complaints about the temperature of the rooms. Occasionally, we get criticism about the interactivity of workshops. But our view is that schools that attend are paying for expertise and knowledge and we're trying to give them as much as possible in a short amount of time (one day typically).
ASGA is a constantly improving and growing organization. Why? Because we're substantive. We're real. We provide practical information and knowledge that helps our 872 member schools (which is about four times as large as USSA, by the way). ASGA has achieved this growth not because of marketing gimmicks or tricks but because our workshops and conferences really do help our members. That's why so many of them come back year after year.
We've been producing training conferences only since 2005, but do 10 a year and within another year or two will have produced more student government training conferences than any other organization in American history.
"Right wing" isn't simply a
"Right wing" isn't simply a function of electoral politics or issue stances. Structural issues are political issues - how student governments are organized and run is an inherently political question. Do we want traditional representative democracy, or do we want direct participatory democracy? Do we train cadres of "leaders," or do we empower all students? Do we limit decisions to the ballot box, or make student self-determination real? To be agnostic on those matters is tantamount to support of the status quo.
That being said, in the spirit of good faith I'm willing to retract & suspend my judgment about ASGA pending my attendance of an ASGA conference or two. See you there!