Students help advise ASU’s 1,000+ clubs

Arizona State University values the voices of all students and aims to provide opportunities for all students to be heard and to enact change within the Sun Devil community.

The new Advisory Board for Student Organizations is being organized to accomplish just that and provide ASU’s more than 1,000 clubs with insight on their goals, services and initiatives. In addition, the board creates an additional bridge for facilitating communication between ASU student leaders and faculty and staff. 

The ABSO is composed of six students who advise clubs through the lens of health and wellness; culture, identity, and religion; civic engagement and service; academic and professional organizations; sports and recreation clubs; and special interest groups.

A goat yoga event at ASU's Poly campus in spring 2021

Gregory Carnesi is the student liaison for health and wellness organizations. A third-year psychology major who is minoring in philosophy and pursuing a certificate in cross-sector leadership, Carnesi represents the interests and perspectives of student organizations that relate to student health and wellness. 

“ASU is a university that prioritizes student leadership, so it's important that students have a voice when it comes to administrative actions. I further believe that the ASU experience is significantly strengthened by our many diverse student organizations, so I'm glad that the advisory board exists to improve the functioning of these student organizations,” Carnesi said. 

Like all of us, Carnesi and the Advisory Board for Student Organizations have felt the effects of the current pandemic, and he said that they’ve been programming primarily online. 

They’ve hosted a virtual town hall highlighting how student organizations can adapt to virtual environments, including how to recruit, retain and engage members — and how to prevent meetings from feeling like class lectures. They also helped host a series of outdoor Passport to Spring club fairs and presented a virtual event to help student organizations best prepare to make a great impression at the club fairs.

Carnesi said that since ASU students are learning from multiple campuses or as remote learners from their homes in the Phoenix area, throughout Arizona, across the United States and beyond, engaging students and keeping the lines of communication open can be challenging. 

“We’ve made the most of Zoom and other online platforms during our events and have put in a lot of effort to have interactive, discussion-based portions of our events to keep attendees engaged with our programming.”

If you’d like to get involved with the Advisory Board for Student Organizations and become a member, check out their page on Sun Devil Sync.