ASG Talks RSOs and Business Etiquette

Clubs ask ASG senators for recognition from the universitySasha ToddThe Santa ClaraOctober 4, 2018At the Associated Student Government’s (ASG) third meeting of the quarter, new clubs petitioned for RSO status and a university professor gave the senators tips on business communication.Students from four clubs pitched their ideas to ASG senators last Thursday in the hopes of becoming a Registered Student Organization (RSO).Santa Clara senior Phillip Barber and junior Riley Haase from the Santa Clara Investment Banking Club (SCIB) asked senators to grant their club RSO status.Barber and Haase said that the goal of SCIB was to expand Santa Clara’s presence in the investment banking industry in two ways—to bring awareness to the industry and to help students land jobs.Santa Clara Investment Club (SCIC) also petitioned for RSO status.Club president and sophomore student Ryan Calbert, explained the distinction between SCIB and his club.SCIC would help interested students learn the basics of investing in different companies through tips in weekly newsletters.Any Santa Clara student would be able to join the club and no prior investment knowledge would be necessary.ASG senators asked if he’d be open to changing the club’s name due to the similarity to SCIB and Calbert said he would consider it.Seniors Dani Demeter and Sammy Pulos also made a pitch at Thursday’s meeting for their club, VRoncos.VRoncos focuses on the expansion of Virtual Reality (VR) technology and understanding on Santa Clara’s campus.They talked about the many ways the technology would benefit others, including bringing students from all disciplines together to benefit from the VR industry.As of now, the VR lab on campus is being used for multidisciplinary projects, so this club would help foster this kind of enlightenment and open up the lab to students who have never tried their hand at VR.Other clubs that petitioned for RSO status included Agents of Change, a national organization that juniors Charlie Douille and Tarren Kramer hope to bring to Santa Clara as the first university chapter.On the national level, Agents of Change employs a team of experienced group facilitators and helps organizations increase team building and better achieve their overall goals.At Santa Clara, the Agents of Change club would volunteer their time in the surrounding San Jose area and reach out to high school students by helping them get involved in the community as well.Attendees of Thursday’s ASG meeting were also treated to a presentation by Sean O’Keefe, a Lecturer of Business Communication at the Leavey School of Business.O’Keefe was invited to speak to ASG in order to help members professionalize their communication in order to meet the goals they have both as senators and as students.He went over how to write an effective business email and the ways that business emails differ from traditional academic writing.O’Keefe noted that ASG members are “the leaders at a prestigious university” and that it is their responsibility to listen to students’ requests and be the liaison between students and faculty.He offered tips on how to accomplish this goal.“In your role in student government and in your business careers, you never want to make a request from someone who can tell you ‘no’ but cannot tell you ‘yes,’” O’Keefe said. “It’s not very strategic.”O’Keefe also gave advice after looking at examples of emails the senators showed him that they had sent to professors in the past.“For a lot of things, email isn’t the best medium to make the request,” O’Keefe said. “Email is the medium that you should use to set up a meeting. You’ve got to get face time in a lot of these situations where you are asking for money and resources.”He also talked about how to handle a conversation on the phone or in person during a business situation.O’Keefe explained the concept of “mirroring” and showed a short film made by a professor at Duke University laying out the basics of small talk.The video explained that small talk can be difficult for many, particularly younger people who do not have much experience communicating in the business world or for whom it doesn’t come intuitively.He encouraged his audience of ASG senators to take risks when making business requests.“You’re going to take chances and sometimes things might go wrong and you might make mistakes,” O’Keefe said. “Don’t let that keep you from moving forward.”In response to O’Keefe’s presentation, Asa Sweetser, a Santa Clara senior and VP of Community Development for ASG said, “It was great to have Sean come speak. Specifically, I really enjoyed his activity in which we looked at different emails we had sent to professors asking for requests. Professor O’Keefe taught us a better way to communicate with them.”In addition to hearing pitches for RSOs and getting tips on business communication, senators also voted in Shivani Gohil as ASG’s newest junior senator.ASG will hold its next meeting on Thursday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. in the MSSN Room in Benson Memorial Center.Contact Sasha Todd at artodd@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.