Editor’s Note: The Michigan Daily Editorial Board interviewed five of seven Central Student Government executive tickets. Alifa Chowdhury, Shut It Down presidential candidate, is a former Daily staffer. The Editorial Board was made aware of this prior to the interviews. Chowdhury did not influence the Board’s final decision or contribute to this article.
On March 27 and 28, University of Michigan students across all 19 colleges and schools will be eligible to vote in the Central Student Government’s presidential election. Created during the Vietnam War, CSG has served a changing role on campus over the years. CSG is now responsible for funding student organizations with an almost-six-figure budget, engaging with U-M administration on behalf of the student body and passing both policy and advocacy initiatives to improve student life.
The CSG Executive Branch serves as an important arbitrator between student interests and the administration. Given the importance of the job, The Daily Editorial Board interviewed five presidential tickets to make an informed endorsement. After careful consideration, this Editorial Board has decided to endorse LSA juniors Terra Lafreniere and Jules Quenioux under the MomentUM ticket for the CSG presidential election.
Operating CSG is a difficult task. With its bloated size and often-grueling work schedule, the executive must be able to manage large organizations and work with the diverse set of people in them. The executive should also have specific and achievable goals for their tenure. It is in these criteria and others that the MomentUM ticket rises far above the rest. The ticket’s time in both CSG and non-CSG campus leadership makes us confident that they can competently organize CSG’s staff, programming and budget.
Lafrieniere, the presidential candidate, is an LSA junior currently serving as CSG’s chief programming officer. A data science major from Austin, Texas, she has worked on a variety of important projects throughout her time in CSG. Among them are the airport-transportation program AirBus, which provides affordable busing to and from Detroit Metro Airport, and a partnership with Uwill, a free teletherapy service for students.
Quenioux, the vice presidential candidate, is an economics major hailing from Farmington with a wide range of past experience on CSG, serving as the deputy chief of staff, deputy programming officer for events and as an intern to the policy advisor for sustainability. As the current chief of staff, she oversees all Executive Branch functions. During her tenure, she spearheaded CSG’s subsidized headshot program and served as a liaison for the Central Student Legislature.
MomentUM based its platform on three key issues: “Students don’t feel safe on campus, students don’t feel heard on campus and students can’t afford campus.” While the issues raised by Lafreniere and Quenioux were acknowledged by all the candidates to some degree in our interviews, this ticket set itself apart through its pragmatic approach. The MomentUM platform is divided into 30 different directives, half of which are action items and the other half being related to advocacy.
Lafreniere and Quenioux plan to increase the accessibility of CSG by scheduling more frequent meetings and holding open office hours on both North and Central campuses. Along with fortifying the CSG-student body relationship, they want to strengthen the connection between students and the University. Their loftiest goal in this regard is to institute an ex-officio student representative position on the University Board of Regents. Notably, the University of Michigan is the only Big Ten school without some form of a student representative on the Board of Regents.
To tackle affordability, the pair plans to provide free busing to affordable and culturally relevant grocery stores, partner with Lyft to provide free late-night transportation and restructure SafeRide and other existing ride-service programs. Given Lafreniere’s previous experience working on the AirBus program, the ticket is well-suited to achieve such ambitious goals.
These objectives go hand in hand with MomentUM’s plan to reform campus safety. A revitalized transportation system and more off-campus lighting would make nighttime traveling significantly safer. Moreover, the candidates intend to develop enhanced measures to combat sexual misconduct and hate speech, lengthen University Health Services’ weekend hours and expand Counseling and Psychological Services to include counselors with a wider range of identities.
In line with MomentUM’s mission of representing all of campus, the candidates will work with the University to prevent exams on religious holidays and election days, as well as mandate lecture capture for all lecture-based courses. The candidates will also bring more culturally relevant foods to dining halls and provide quality meals for those with dietary restrictions.
After extensive deliberations on each of the five unique platforms, Lafreniere and Quenioux’s platform stood out not only in the diversity of issues it seeks to tackle, but also how clearly defined and realistic its action items are. Through their conviction, wealth of experience and connections to the campus community, Lafreniere and Quenioux convinced this Editorial Board to endorse their executive ticket. By prioritizing connections to the student body, expanding existing policy and introducing new initiatives, we believe their contributions will go a long way to expanding CSG’s role and rapport on campus should they be elected into office.
This editorial represents the opinion of The Michigan Daily’s Editorial Board. If you are interested in submitting an Op-Ed or Letter to the Editor, please send your submission to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.