United Students Government (USG)

A Brief History of USG at Buffalo State

At some point in your early days at Buffalo State you probably looked around and wondered about its history. Maybe you heard the bell from the Rockwell Hall tower and wondered how long it had been ringing. Perhaps as you moved into a dorm you noticed the date on the cornerstone and as you fell asleep that night your thoughts wandered to the scores of students who had lived in that room before you.

A little research will give you some basic history. Buffalo State opened in 1871 as the Buffalo Normal School on a campus farther downtown. By 1926 the school had grown enough in size and stature to become State Teachers College at Buffalo. It had also outgrown its first location, and construction soon started on the current Elmwood Avenue campus. A five-building campus opened in the early 1930s with Rockwell Hall as its centerpiece.

After World War II the school was renamed the New York State College for Teachers at Buffalo, and shortly afterward it was included when the State University of New York system was created in 1948. During the 1950s and 60s the campus was expanded to include residence halls, dining halls, the library, gymnasium, specialized classroom buildings, the student union and administration building. The sports arena and ice rink were added in the 1980s.

This physical expansion was accompanied by an expanded mission - Buffalo State went from a teacher training school to a comprehensive college offering a wide range of degrees.

Naturally as the campus grew, so did the size and diversity of the student body. When the college was small, a simple system of class officers was adequate for planning social events and interacting with administrators. Clubs were generally independent and had their own dues or fundraisers to pay for activities. As the student body grew, an organized student government became a necessity.

In the years prior to the college’s centennial year - 1971 - the students had been represented by the College Student Association, with officers elected from and by the student body. Most student organizations were included in the student government group.

By 1971 the students felt that a more structured student government was necessary. A new constitution was written - and rewritten - several times - and sent to student referendum. The constitution included a name change to the United Students Government (USG). When that constitution was approved in April 1971, USG became the representative student government at Buffalo State.

A few weeks later USG’s first elections were held, and Don Houck, Tom Williams and Rick Pictor were elected: respectively, USG’s first President, Vice President, and Treasurer.

The fundamental purpose of any student government is to give students an organized voice. USG officers have always been charged with representing students in discussions with the college administrators on current college policies and future directions that the institution might take. But concerns do go beyond local issues. When the Student Assembly of the State University was formed to represent students from state campuses in dealings with the State University and state government in Albany, USG officers made sure that USG was there to speak for Buff State students even before the group was formally recognized by the SUNY Trustees.

Another purpose of a student government is to provide a vehicle for student sponsored extracurricular activities and, occasionally, to provide a service for students that has been identified as necessary but is not being provided by the college. All of that takes money.

The mandatory student activity fee pre-dates USG. When USG replaced the CSA, it became the authorized recipient of the fee funds. USG also inherited a financial system that used the Faculty-Student Association - an entity that, in those days, operated the bookstore and campus food services - as a custodial financial agent. FSA kept all of USG’s bank accounts and handled all accounting and check writing. They also charged fees for these services.

Early USG officers were not terribly happy with the arrangement with FSA. They decided they could handle their own finances. In the fall of 1973, they hired a business manager and purchased a computer accounting system. USG took over administration of the activity fee funds in 1974. A couple of years after that USG became incorporated, further increasing the financial independence that students had been seeking.

The administrative structure of USG was also different in those early days. There were far fewer member organizations and, in many cases,, they were grouped into Boards of organizations with similar purposes. One example of the Board structure is the Student Media Board which included the Record newspaper, the yearbook, the radio station, and several student periodicals. The boards had representatives in both the House of Finance, which oversaw all of USG’s spending, and the House of Representatives, which also included at-large Representatives and evolved into the current USG Senate. That evolution is only one of the many changes the USG Constitution has gone through since 1971.

A look at the budget in 1974 shows that 17 percent of the funding went to the Inter Collegiate Athletics Department - an allocation that was discontinued when the Athletics Fee was instituted. Money was also budgeted for the Student Union Board which sponsored concerts, lectures, and movies, and the Camp Board a student group which managed Whispering Pines Camp in Franklinville, New York.

Whispering Pines is another responsibility and asset that USG inherited from CSA. The camp - roughly a square mile of land 70 miles south of the campus - was opened in 1953 with a single building, the Laug Lodge. Thousands of students have visited the camp over the decades and the property has been improved in many ways. A second lodge was built in 1969 by CSA but destroyed by fire after only four years. The current Alaimo Lodge replaced it several years later. The camp director’s dwelling was finished in 1997. The camp land title was held by the Faculty Student Association from 1952, when the original property was donated, until 2000 when it was officially turned over to USG.

As an advocate for student needs, USG has often had to take on projects that the college was slow or reluctant to move on. The Alternate Health Board was created in the early 1970s to provide services (mainly sexuality related) that the Weigel Health Center did not. Those services were eventually taken over by The Health Center. The Alternate Health Board also included the Dental Clinic, which provided preventative dental care was discontinued in 2018 when the service was no longer essential for students to receive on-campus.

Another health service, the USG Ambulance Corp which provided on-campus emergency vehicle service, was discontinued in the late 1980s when costs got out of hand.

Another campus need that USG students identified was children's day care. This service gap was first filled by USG in 1973 with a mainly student managed facility. The College eventually took over that as well, but USG still supports the Child Care Center with an annual grant.

USG has been proactive in improving student life in other ways. The Bengal Pause activity period began life as a suggestion from USG Treasurer Irwin Gilbert for twice a week “Club Hours.” It took a few years to make it happen, but because Gilbert's successors in USG backed his idea it became a valuable reality.

An even bigger idea that became reality because USG officers kept the ball rolling was the Buffalo State Sports Arena. The concept of a campus athletic fieldhouse had been around for a while but finally got moving when USG President Pete Starson made it his cause in 1980. Over the next decade USG, through a 1982 petition drive and general vocal support, kept the project alive. They also refused to allow the college and SUNY to eliminate the Ice Rink to save money. The arena – with an ice rink – opened in 1991.

In 2002, when the operating hours of the Butler Library were deemed inadequate, USG organized a series of demonstrations including a late-night sit-in by USG Senators and officers. The result: the study quad was carved out of the library to make extended hours a practical policy.

In 2006, noticing a lack of commuter activities on campus USG opened a Game Room in the basement of the Campbell Student Union. The USG Game Room offered a variety of activities over the years from pool tables, ping pong, foosball, board games, air hockey, bubble hockey, video games, darts, televisions, and tournaments. Due to lessening use the USG Game Room closed in the spring of 2020.

In 2011, USG went digital by providing www.BengalConnect.com a platform which provided USG, their organizations, and the campus opportunities to engage students online regarding activities and membership to their organizations. As well as conducting organization duties and paperwork online. This platform is still used today.

If you were one of the top USG executive board members you used to walk into your office in Student Union 402 and know that every single USG president, vice president, and treasurer walked through the same door. In 2021 this did change, as the USG Offices were moved by the college to the basement of the Campbell Student Union in the 105 hallway.

So, you can see by all this that USG is an integral part of Buffalo State’s history and development. And as part of USG, you do have an opportunity to have a long-lasting effect on the campus.