ACUI President Mark Guthier talks 100th anniversary festivities and the college union idea
Earlier this month, we sat down with Mark Guthier, director of the Wisconsin Union and now president of the Association of College Unions International (ACUI). Here’s what he had to say about his vision for the association in conjunction with the Wisconsin Union.
By Francesca Bonifacio
Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Union
What does your becoming president of ACUI mean for the connections you hope to make between the association and the Wisconsin Union?
Well certainly, I guess the most obvious connection would be that I’ll have a lot of contact with the 580 member schools from around the country, more so than I would normally have, so I’ll get to pick up ideas from other schools, like best practices; hear stories about what’s going well and what’s not going well; and I can bring some of those ideas back to Wisconsin.
I’ll also get to share the great things happening at Wisconsin with other schools, so it kind of goes both ways. And it’s just always good to have another opportunity have the Wisconsin brand out there.
What are you most excited about as ACUI’s new president?
As it so happens, the association is celebrating its 100th anniversary at the conference in April, so there’ll be a lot of planning and thinking and working leading up to that. So it’ll be kind of fun to be a part of that celebration for the association while I’m president.
What kinds of things do you have planned?
We’re going to unveil a museum at the conference, so we hope to have some things from the Wisconsin Union in the museum and things from Porter Butts’s early years.
We’re going to have a gala celebration and try to have all of the founding schools be present. There’s a set of founding schools; the University of Wisconsin is one of them, so we’re trying to get a good representation from UW-Madison at the conference.
We’re also trying to do a year-long community service initiative to try and track all the service hours that all the students and staff at the various college unions around the country contribute to the community throughout the anniversary year, so that will get launched at the annual conference. Certainly, we do service things here, so it’ll be fun to be part of that.
What are some key takeaways from Porter Butts’ original idea of college unions that help to carry the Union forward?
Well, Porter believed strongly in two or three different concepts that always get mentioned, in no particular order: the concept that there will be student majority in the governance of this place; that students would be in charge of the program and it would be staff-advised, but definitely student-led, so all the programs and events that happen here are done by students. Students have the most seats in the council, the governing body; it’s very student-focused, student-delivered, and student-driven – that’s remained true to today.
Secondly, even though that’s true, we are not simply a student union. We’re also a campus union, a community union, so we want faculty and staff to feel just as welcome here as students.
Other things that often get mentioned about Porter are his love of the arts. It’s very important to have art, particularly two-dimensional art out on the walls, and in the gallery dedicated to art, and have it be curated by students. He was also a lover of the outdoors and outdoor recreation, hence Hoofers.
What was your personal experience like with college unions during your college years?
When I was a student at Indiana, I certainly hung out at the union, but I wasn’t involved in its programming or its governance. Like here, there are thousands of students who use the Terrace, who see films, take in the occasional theater event, grab a burger, and that kind of stuff – I was one of those. I thought it was a great place, but my involvement in undergrad was with the student marching band, actually. So it wasn’t until I had that chance encounter and got exposed to unions as a career that I really fully understood how unions worked and the level of student involvement.
Was there a catalyst, or an “a-ha” moment?
The catalyst was probably a couple things. My first two years I worked at the union in Indiana, I was advising their lectures committee, kind of the equivalent of our Distinguished Lecture Series here. And I was advising two or three other smaller committees, but the lectures one was the main one.
There was also a committee there called the Concerts Committee, and they would do things like we did with Revelry, like ticketed shows and outdoor events for Indiana University’s end-of-the-year bash. And going there and seeing that all put on by the students and knowing that the staff kind of just stood in the background and watched it all happen, you know, you got the feeling like, “Oh, we’re really making a difference here.”
They had an alumni group there, kind of like we do here, and going to the first alumni reunion and seeing all these older folks come streaming back in and telling their stories about how their union experience changed their lives… I thought, “This is really something special.” Moments like that made me say, “Wow, I should really stay in this field. This is cool stuff.”
And moving forward, what’s your overall vision or plan while working with ACUI?
The president turns over every year, kind of like the president of the Union does here, so my vision really is to help the association move forward on its strategic plan that it’s already laid out with the members of the association. It’d be hard for an individual president to come in and change course.
There’s going to be a whole regional restructuring this year, going from 15 regions down to eight, so we’re combining some states together that weren’t together before. We’ll continue to work on growing the membership base and getting more members into the association. We’ll working on transitioning to a new executive director. But these are all things that were already in place before I became president.
Really, the nicest thing about the presidency is that you’re elected by your peers, so it’s just nice to have people put that kind of faith and trust in you to lead their volunteer association for a year, so I’m hoping to live up to their trust.
