Editor’s Note: Alifa Chowdhury is a former Daily staffer. Chowdhury did not contribute to this article.
The Michigan Daily sat down with candidates who responded to requests for interviews to discuss their party platform and the upcoming CSG election on March 27 and 28. The interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
MomentUM Ticket: Terra Lafreniere and Jules Quenioux
LSA juniors Terra Lafreniere and Jules Quenioux are running for Central Student Government 2024 president and vice president, respectively, as a part of the MomentUM party. Lafreniere currently serves as the chief programming officer of CSG. Quenioux is the chief of staff of CSG.
TMD: What inspired you to run for CSG president and vice president?
Terra Lafreniere: We decided to run because we’ve done a lot of outreach with students, and we realized that there are three main issues that a lot of students on campus are facing: students don’t really feel safe on campus, students don’t feel heard on campus and students cannot afford campus right now. Jules and I decided to run together to try to tackle those issues. Our platform is broken into tackling affordability and accessibility, uplifting student voices and reforming campus safety to try to make tangible change to students’ daily lives.
Jules Quenioux: We’ve been in CSG for the past few years, and we’ve held a variety of roles. We’ve both been in the policy sphere, the internal sphere and programming and events. Through those three different avenues, we’ve noticed the problems we described consistently during those three years. I think that Terra and I have a strong understanding of campus, as well as CSG’s scope and what it can accomplish in a year. We’ve seen what works, we’ve seen what doesn’t work and we’re really excited to bring that knowledge into a more advocacy-based role.
Something else we made a core part of our campaign was the necessity of both having CSG experience and also bringing in new faces, new perspectives and new ideas into CSG continually. I think historically, it’s not a secret that CSG has not necessarily been representative of the entire campus community. This is something that we really sought to try to fix, in both our platform and in our Assembly candidate slate. Twenty-seven out of 35 of the MomentUM-endorsed candidates are new to the Assembly. They have new ideas, new perspectives to bring. They’re really involved on campus. We believe that together as a team, we’ll be able to create change effectively from day one.
TMD: What are your major campaign goals?
TF: Our main goals are tackling affordability and accessibility, uplifting student voices and reforming campus safety. On our platform, we have 10 different directives for each of those categories, split into action and advocacy points. Action items are ones that can tangibly be done by CSG, without permission from anyone else. The advocacy items are the broader points we want to advocate for. For example, with an action item for affordability and accessibility, we want to provide free transportation for students to affordable and culturally relevant grocery stores. There’s a big lack of accessibility for food on campus, especially if you don’t have a car. Taking the bus system is really great, but it’s really hard to carry 20 pounds of groceries back from the grocery store. We would like to provide that service to students so that they have more accessibility to food items. We know exactly how easy it is. I ran AirBus this past year, which is a very similar shuttle service, so we know exactly how to tackle that.
JQ: Affordability is something that we’re really passionate about, especially regarding housing. We’ve been partnering with the Ann Arbor Tenants Union, and we’re really excited to start doing that in a more official CSG capacity. They’re just rebuilding now. They haven’t been very active since 2004, but they used to do great work advocating for students, making students feel safer, and having those conversations with landlords about rent, safety and keeping houses up to code. We’re really excited to be advocating with them for some sort of rent control, perhaps for the removal of junk and waitlist fees that a lot of landlords are enforcing right now. We also want to work with them on advocating for more on-campus affordable housing and work with the University of Michigan on how that could look within the city. This ties back to our campaign goal of uplifting student voices. We want to work more with the city of Ann Arbor. CSG has traditionally not had a relationship with our city council, which is a really big gap if we’re going to be advocating for these issues with a scope beyond just campus. That’s a relationship we’re really looking to bolster. Having a representative go to those city council meetings and advocate really loudly on students’ behalf is something we’re really excited to do.
TMD: Is there anything you would like to tell voters so they are more aware of your goals and why they should be interested in your campaign?
JQ: What we’ve found effective in our outreach is making it much more of a conversation than us talking about our own goals, thoughts and perspectives. We really realized the value of the U-M community, especially through the campaign, is hearing from our assembly candidates, hearing from all these organization leaders and students on campus about their issues, and tying that into how that fits into our platform and our goals. We’ve noticed that a lot of the issues that students are facing are embedded in our platform because we’ve spent three years talking with students about issues on campus. Approaching it more as a conversation than a pitch has been really important to Terra and me.
TF: I completely agree about it being a conversation. Student government should never just be someone talking to someone without ever getting any feedback or making those connections. Another thing we would highlight is that we want to change student interactions with CSG. We would love to be able to talk to students that don’t really know much about CSG. It’s something we’ve been doing for our entire time on campus, and we want to change the transparency of communication structures by providing feedback and getting feedback from students.
SHUT IT DOWN Ticket: Alifa Chowdhury and Elias Atkinson
LSA junior Alifa Chowdhury and LSA sophomore Elias Atkinson are running for Central Student Government 2024 president and vice president, respectively, as a part of the SHUT IT DOWN party. Chowdhury and Atkinson are representing the TAHRIR Coalition.
The Michigan Daily: What inspired you to run for CSG president and vice president?
Alifa Chowdhury: Eli and I both are in the TAHRIR Coalition, which is a coalition of 80-plus student organizations on campus all fighting for Palestinian human rights and divestment from Israel and weapons manufacturing companies and whatnot. What being in that space means is coming up with ideas as to how we can get our message across and get our demands met. One of those avenues, we decided, could be CSG. Both of us decided to run, as well as everybody on our slate, because of the opportunity to make some change on campus. Just to clarify, it wasn’t like we wanted the executive ticket — you could have switched us out with any other two people and it wouldn’t have mattered, because I don’t think it’s a persona of myself that I am trying to bring to CSG, it’s really the ideology.
TMD: What are your major campaign goals?
AC: Our party platform is really, really simple. The way we view CSG is that CSG is an extension of an institution that has perpetuated systems of oppression and that they do that by maintaining the current status quo. The University administration and the Regents tell students to make their voices heard and one of those means is through CSG. But the minute the people in CSG pass a resolution they don’t like or pass a resolution that isn’t fiscally in line with what they want to do, they shut it down, or they’re just like, “No, this isn’t feasible and we can’t do this.” I think that holds a lot of irony to it because if CSG is an avenue in which students can make their concerns known and voices heard, then why is it the minute that clashes up against what the Regents want and what the administration wants that it’s a complete “no?” We can see that for a lot of things, but we can mainly see that for divestment. Student activists on campus have been trying to make their voices heard through CSG and outside of CSG, and it hasn’t been working.
TMD: Is there anything you would like to tell voters so they are more aware of your goals and why they should be interested in your campaign?
AC: I think people should vote for our campaign because we are asking for something so much bigger than what is on campus right now. We’re trying to make change for people halfway across the globe right now. That is so much bigger than our University and us as students in our student orgs. It allows us to make change on such a bigger structural level, and it’s an opportunity people really should take.
Elias Atkinson: A vote for SHUT IT DOWN is a vote for wider structural change that reaches beyond just our campus. To have a functioning CSG isn’t necessary at this point because if there were serious problems for the student body that needed to be solved, the administration wouldn’t make us go through all of these bureaucratic processes to have them heard and addressed.
United for Michigan Ticket: Liam Reaser and Abigail O’Connell
LSA sophomore Liam Reaser and Public Health sophomore Abigail O’Connell are running for Central Student Government 2024 president and vice president, respectively, as part of the United for Michigan Party. Reaser currently serves as the parliamentarian of the CSG Assembly and chair of the Rules Committee. O’Connell currently serves as a representative and chair of the Appointments Subcommittee in the LSA Student Government.
TMD: What inspired you to run for CSG president and vice president?
Liam Reaser: I think CSG is in a better place than it was a year ago, and I’m now in a position where I have a lot more clarity and perspective as to the things that are not going right. I think CSG is very much in a place right now where it’s kind of stagnant. We have to do the same sort of things that we’ve done in years past, and there’s not a lot of progress. We advocate for the same sorts of things, and the University of Michigan won’t budge, we won’t budge. I think where CSG has had success in the past with these sorts of things is by taking ownership of problems, even when it’s not CSG’s responsibility, but taking ownership of problems on campus and trying to improve them. Airbus is a great example of this. We’re not responsible — it’s not CSG’s sworn duty to take people from Ann Arbor to the airport, but it took ownership of that problem. We delivered a really good service, and it continues to benefit students year after year. So I think taking ownership of more problems is something I’m really passionate about because I think we can make campus better. The short answer to your question is that I’m running because I think I see a way to make campus better through CSG.
Abigail O’Connell: I think on the contrary, I never imagined myself actually running for vice president. I’ll be honest, that was never something that crossed my mind until earlier this semester. It really comes from the fact that advocacy and activism are super important to me. I think that student organizations on this campus are the beating heart of the University and they keep students motivated. They give students passion, and they allow them to express themselves. I’ve been a part of LSA Student Government for two years, and there are similarities and differences certainly between CSG and LSA student government. But I think the culture of CSG is one thing that really stuck out to me, and I think that there’s more that can be done, especially when it comes to advocacy and activism and protecting that on campus.
To address the elephant in the room, this year has been absolutely terrible when it comes to the University’s demands and reactions to student activism and free speech. So I think there are a lot of things we can do, even if it’s outside the box. I see myself as being able to mediate. I’ve had a lot of conversations with administration before and with my school district from high school, so I know how these conversations work and how they can be two-sided. But I really want to be that mediator, bridging the gap between students and administration in the next coming year. I genuinely think we can make a difference when it comes to campus conflict and how the administration responds.
TMD: What are your major campaign goals?
LR: In our party platform that we’ve published, there are five key issues. First off, I think housing is a super important issue. We’ve got a proposal in there that will mimic some things that have been done in the private sector to increase the transparency between students and landlords in Ann Arbor. It’s fairly technical, but I think we have to have these out-of-the-box solutions that maybe have never been tried at the student government level but worked in business in other countries and other country’s governments.
Another thing is establishing a Central Student Reserve, where instead of having a pile of cash as the reserve fund, CSG would invest that money. Then CSG is able to keep your student fees at a constant amount because their investments basically counteract inflation and any fee increases you would need. Another priority for us is working with student organizations more closely. So one of the things we proposed is having ambassadors within the executive branch whose primary responsibility is to maintain relationships with student organizations. I think to a lot of people, CSG is a very faceless institution, so it is important for you to have someone who is actively checking in with you on a regular basis. We’re not asking anything of you, we just want to know your opinion. There’s so little of that in today’s CSG, and I think we can really bridge that divide by losing the arrogance we have that expects people to come to us.
AO: One of our other platform points is that we really want to utilize the University Council more, which is currently student leaders that come together. The vice president chairs these meetings, but it’s meetings with the administration and student leaders on campus, and it’s another way for us to really reach out to students, rather than having students come to CSG.
TMD: Is there anything you would like to tell voters so they are more aware of your goals and why they should be interested in your campaign?
LR: I think a large proportion of the campus has sort of looked at what CSG does, and they say, “This isn’t affecting me.” I think that can be true for a lot of students, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t affect them. Just because we’re not doing as much as we should now, doesn’t mean we should lose hope for what it can be. I think some parties would say everything with CSG is wrong, it can’t be fixed, it’s insurmountable. Some will say there’s no problem at all. I think both of these are short-sighted. I think the extreme pessimism on one side is totally unfounded because I look at this platform, and I’m excited because it means these things actually have the ability to work. On the other hand, I also don’t think everything is okay. Our voter turnout is 15%. That’s not okay. Just because we haven’t been doing enough doesn’t mean we should lose hope. That’s what we’re trying to do —offer hope for a CSG that is so much more than it is right now.
AO: We have so much passion to serve the greater good. We’re involved on campus and we have our own advocacy efforts and personal passions. I think when it comes down to the platform, there’s a lot of excitement on both of our ends to start making changes because there clearly are some problems. If students are going to give us this opportunity, we promise we won’t disappoint.
Workers’ and Tenants’ Party Ticket: Gabriel Ervin and Glenn Coleman
LSA senior Gabriel Ervin and LSA junior Glenn Coleman are running for Central Student Government 2024 president and vice president, respectively, as a part of the Workers’ and Tenants’ Party. Ervin served as an associate member of the LSA Student Government and is studying political science. Coleman has no student government background and is studying political science and business.
TMD: What inspired you to run for CSG president and vice president?
Gabriel Ervin: The primary reason that I had to run was the cost of living on campus, and broadly in Ann Arbor. If we’re going to tackle something like a cost of living crisis, it’s important that we unite the interests of both workers and tenants to achieve these common goals. I thoroughly believe that the current CSG Assembly simply does not have the political will to take on a fight. I’m a guy who’s up for a fight and I’m not somebody who backs down easily. I’m not somebody who’s easily intimidated. With my background as a labor rights coordinator, as a student advocate on the curriculum committee and with my running mate who’s deeply familiar with business, I think we have the ability to take the fight against businesses and take the fight for the students.
Glenn Coleman: One of my first introductions to the cost of living crisis was through my friends. I have several friends who were trying to rent out apartments and the rents were going for $1,800, sometimes near $2,000 a month. What I thought after hearing this is that, “This is not New York City. Why do we have this problem?” Not only do we have a cost of living problem here in the city, but many students are having trouble finding places to live and that’s definitely an extreme issue that we need to take care of. We’re not going to back down. We’re going to stand up for what the students need.
TMD: What are your major campaign goals?
GE: The housing crisis is obviously the number one issue, and that juxtaposes with the cost of living crisis. I would say the lack of growth in wages is also an issue and the fight for $15 per hour wages started in 2012. I’d also like to see student engagement addressed. I think the reason the student government is unable to push for tangible changes is because it doesn’t have a solidified, motivated student population to back up our decisions. If landlords see a united student population who says “The rent is too high, we’re not getting paid enough and nobody’s listening to us,” people are going to have to listen.
GC: I feel like the student body is very unmotivated. They don’t have any reason to get involved and if things stay the same, the student body is going to remain uninvolved. Additionally, I do believe wages are also a big problem. $15 an hour is not enough today. I believe that ways of raising the minimum wage on campus is definitely something that will attract not only more students to work on campus but general interest in our platform as well.
GE: This is a real opportunity to show that the student body will not be ignored. If your primary concern is wages, vote for us. If the primary concern is rent, vote for us. We are running on this dual-issue platform. Not a single issue. We’re focused on workers and tenants, rent and wages. I know that there are ways that we can talk with local businesses and there are ways we can unionize our workers. There are ways we can support them. There are ways we can support the Tenants Union.
Other executive tickets for the 2024 CSG elections include Pharmacy student Premkumar Ganesan, who has no party affiliation; LSA sophomore Tony Liu and LSA junior Kieran Haas, who have no party affiliation and Public Policy senior Christian Loredo-Duran and LSA sophomore Melanie Cruz, who are running as part of the Acción Unida party.
The CSG election guide for the winter 2024 elections can be found here.
Daily News Editor Ji Hoon Choi can be reached at jicho@umich.edu. Daily Staff Reporters Thomas Gala-Garza, Anna Jerolimov and Delilah Dakis tmgala@umich.edu, annajero@umich.edu and delilahd@umich.edu.