The Union Senate is reviving and reinventing its club liaison program to improve communication and cooperation between club members and the Union, former Class of 2008 Senator Noah Haber told the Justice."There's this big rift between the clubs and the Union and neither knows what the other is doing," he said.

Haber said that the Union is currently undergoing a transformation in which it is trying to become a more open, participatory group.

"The [executive] board last year led a very closed system where no one really knew what was going on," Haber said. "No one else could do anything to help them, and at the same time they were out of touch with what the problems were."

Haber, who served on the senate last year and has been working exclusively on the liaison project this fall, said it is important to increase ties between the Union and clubs because while the campus's roughly 200 clubs and organizations serve as the best representations of the student body, many often feel overlooked.

The Union will appoint 25 students who are familiar with Union procedures and experienced with club activities to fill the new liaison posts. Haber said that club experience is particularly important.

During a series of meetings, club leaders commonly expressed the desire for someone very familiar with their individual organizations to represent them, Haber said.

Union bylaws state that the liaison program will "proactively educate club leaders and their memberships on resources available" to them, as well as "serve as an outlet for club advocacy related issues between clubs, the Union Government and the administration."

However, Haber said the program fell out of existence several years ago because the system was rarely utilized and poorly organized.

He stressed that the new program "will be built from the ground up," that it will not be based upon the old system, and that it will not serve as a "middleman or management program."

"Liaisons can act as knowledge bases and linking devices," Haber said. "We're not breaking the lines of communication between the Union and clubs, but facilitating them."

Haber said that club liaisons facilitate communication between the Union and clubs, help clubs better utilize available resources, and create a "familiar face" for clubs within the Union.

As experts on both club activities and the process of the Senate, Haber said, liaisons can serve as efficient mediators between the two groups, which may alleviate the oft-heard complaint from clubs that approaching the senate is an intimidating process.

"Our ultimate purpose is to help clubs to continue and expand in their various activities," Haber said.