A mostly empty SUB Monday afternoon translated into a light turnout for what ASUNM leaders expected to be a chance for students to voice their concerns about campus issues.
During the past month, the Associated Students of UNM has advertised a Mid-Semester Tell-all in the Daily Lobo as an informal opportunity to hold the student government accountable.
"We want to talk student to student," ASUNM President Jennifer Onuska said. "We don't want it to be formal or intimidating. It's more of a chance for us to find out where students want us to go. It's time for students to educate themselves about UNM."
Onuska, ASUNM Executive Agency members and senators planned to spend about two hours in the SUB - from 3 to 5 p.m. -approaching students and asking them how the University could improve.
Sen. Jacque Garcia said what little feedback she received concerned how to get involved with ASUNM, not ways to make UNM better. The Tell-all probably should have been scheduled for earlier in the day, when more students are usually around, Garcia said.
"As soon as I got here, I knew it needed to be changed," she said.
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A similar forum is in the planning stages for next semester, with a tentative start time of noon, Onuska said.
Responses Onuska heard included more accessible parking, a conservative political speaker on campus to balance liberal acts such as Michael Moore, access for student groups to the electronic billboard outside the SUB, equality of funding among UNM departments and a dialogue between ASUNM and campus police about bicycle theft.
"I only had one student talk to me about tuition increases, which I found very surprising," she said.
Ken Johnson, a junior marketing major, said he came to the SUB Monday for a late lunch. Johnson said he didn't know about the Tell-all, and no one from ASUNM approached him.
Parking, he said, causes students the most headaches at the University.
