Preliminary Guide to the ASWSU Activities Center Records, 1986-1996

The ASWSU (Associated Students of Washington State University) Activities Center serves the university by organizing, directing and generally over-seeing many campus-related student group activities. Administering of student organizations includes constant evaluation and advisement.

The Activities Center was established with approval of the Board of Regents in the Spring of 1947 in answer to student and faculty demands. It began operation during the fall semester of that year. The goal of the Activities Center was to enable a joint student-faculty coordination and participation in student and campus life. The student-faculty cooperative effort was to be augmented by a staff of professionals through whose help the Activities Center was "to bring efficiency and direction by coordinating and guiding existing student organizations, by assisting new groups in developing new programs, an by aiding individual students in planning a balanced program of activities." (As observed in a Review of Student Activities Center Program, April, 1948).

At the time the Activities Center was organized, most of the social activities and student involvement in campus life were coordinated by living groups. As students' living arrangements gradually became more diffuse, the Activities Center became a more important central focal point coordinating their activities. The Activities Center, therefore, became a place of general guidance, assistance and counseling for student committees and concerns. Furthermore, it became a central repository for committee records where evaluations of past activities could be used for recommendations of procedures for future efforts. In this regard, on an annual basis, evaluations of past activities could be used for recommendations of procedures for future efforts. In this regard, on an annual basis, evaluative reports are filed with the Activities Center so that evaluations of the programs can be made; these reports are filed by Committee Chairmen, as well as by faculty advisors to individual committees.

The Activities Center also played a supplemental role in reorganization of the student government. Prior to the formation of the Activities Center, and for some time after it began, the major student government organizational structure was the class governments. However, in time, and especially during the decade of the 1960s, the ASWSU (an organization of all students) superseded the class government system, and the class governments were discontinued in 1968. For the Activities Center this has meant that the role of the students, in directing and actually involving themselves in the workings of the Activities Center, has increased. What was once a joint student-faculty arrangement, in conjunction with professional administrators, has become more of a joint effort between students and professionals.