At ASG’s first meeting last fall, Tommy Smithburg, who played the Al Gore technocrat to then-President Mike McGee’s charismatic Bill Clinton, unveiled a small proposal that underscored a revolutionary idea. The senior wanted to hand control of ASG’s airport ride-sharing and shuttle services over to Northwestern Student Holdings, a private consortium that helps students develop enterprises using NU resources. Smithburg had pushed to create a taxi-sharing network in 2008, before his vice-presidential run. But after another member of Smithburg’s committee suggested adding shuttles on big travel weekends, the venture became too big for ASG, which lacks a bureacracy to implement services, to run. When the shuttles debuted, the senators charged with running them miscalculated demand, losing $250, and later said they were too swamped with other projects to focus on improving them.

Asked what ASG should be, one respondent wrote, “Useful. It’s not. Influential. It’s not. Appealing. It’s certainly not.”

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