Associated Students of the University of Missouri

The Associated Students of the University of Missouri (ASUM) is a non-profit student association formed in 1975 to lobby the state and federal governments on behalf of the students of the University of Missouri System.

Organization
ASUM is governed by a Board of Directors composed of students elected from the various student governments of the UM System. The Board hires an Executive Director, Legislative Director, Assistant Legislative Director and legislative assistants to help operate the organization and implement its legislative agenda.

Member institutions
* University of Missouri-Columbia
* University of Missouri-Kansas City
* Missouri University of Science and Technology
* University of Missouri-St. Louis

Relations with Non-UM System students
In 2001 a group of Missouri students formed the Student Association of Missouri, which sought to unite all students in Missouri in a common voice to lobby the state government. ASUM maintained its mission to represent only UM System students and did not recognized SAM as a uniting force. Although officially SAM maintained a position of cooperation with ASUM, the two organizations rarely collaborated and were considered more adversarial. Much of this may have been due to that fact that most of the students behind the formation of SAM were from Truman State University (which maintained a delegation of legislative interns second only to ASUM in the Missouri General Assembly), and ASUM perceived SAM as Truman's own student lobbying arm despite its stated mission. With the dissolution of SAM in 2005, ASUM is again the only student organized lobbying organization in Missouri.

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