Marketing and Strategy Committee resurrected

The 52nd Student Senate approved changes to the Executive Board’s bylaws on October 5 to bring back the Marketing and Strategy Committee, which had been dissolved in 2019. President of the Union Yaseen Mahmoud ’22 hopes that the return of the Marketing and Strategy Committee will help the Union’s “brand” and help other clubs financially. Furthermore, Mahmoud believes that this committee should be able to alleviate responsibilities of the Student Government Communications Committee, which took on the tasks of the Marketing and Strategy Committee after its dissolution. The motion to approve the bylaw changes passed 16-0-0.

According to Mahmoud, the Marketing and Strategy Committee was dissolved “because SGCC and Marketing shared much of their membership. By combining those two groups, [we thought] we’d be able to have more of a marketing presence.” However, the SGCC taking over the Marketing and Strategy Committee’s role ended up more complicated than initially thought. “[The SGCC] never updated their Senate bylaws,” explained Mahmoud, “which meant that the SGCC chairman had a lot of trouble getting things done.” When asked why he wants to bring back the committee instead of improving on the joint committee, Mahmoud talked about the trouble arising from a lack of leadership and participating in two different committees at the same time. “I think most of the reason is that joint committees, especially in this case, don’t work very well. It makes more sense to bring that back under the E-Board and have the SGCC perform its original task, which is spreading the word about student government and what student government is doing.”

Mahmoud then explained that he would like the new Marketing and Strategy Committee to “make sure we have a cohesive Union brand and make sure that we’re able to provide that support for clubs and give pointers on how to market...and have a strong social media presence.”

SGCC chair Minh Nguyen ’22 presented with Mahmoud: “The Union as a whole helps a bunch of clubs. While the SGCC should be focusing on internal communication between all the branches and getting the information about what we do in here, making it more approachable to all the students on campus, the purpose of the Marketing committee is to not work with only the Union but also with clubs. It should be seen as a resource.” Mahmoud suggested Nguyen lead the Marketing and Strategy Committee.

The Marketing and Strategy Committee will resume work with the marketing team as it had in the past; the marketing team is run by a paid administrator. Nguyen wants to “establish the Marketing and Strategy Committee as a means of oversight for the marketing team.” If there is an issue that the marketing team is struggling with, “the Marketing and Strategy Committee should be involved in that conversation.”

Mahmoud says he is looking for four to eight members for the committee, and, in his words, “hopefully more.”