The University of Michigan Central Student Government met Tuesday night in a hybrid format to discuss confirming students to various leadership positions, increasing student engagement with CSG and allocating funding for a cross-cultural student experience.
The meeting began by confirming LSA junior Sophia Morehouse as Chair of the Clean Campus Commission, and LSA sophomore William Addison as Deputy Commissioner for Operations.
CSG then passed a resolution modifying their procedures for the community concerns portion of the meeting, which is a time during meetings when all members can raise issues and concerns to their peers. The resolution adds a two-minute question and answer period following an individual’s speaking time where there was previously no allotted Q&A time.
The assembly then unanimously confirmed LSA junior Claudia McLean to the position of Elections Director. When asked how she plans to increase student participation in CSG, McLean said she hopes to make student government roles less intimidating.
“CSG can oftentimes feel a little bit more formal, a little bit more complicated, a little bit more intimidating,” McLean said. “You don’t have to be someone who’s going into law school to want to participate in this organization. I think that would be what I would try to be most communicative of in this role.”
CSG also confirmed LSA sophomore Lydia Kado for the position of Deputy Commissioner for Finance. Kado said her previous experience on the LSA student government Sexual Misconduct Prevention Task Force has prepared her for this position.
“I have extensive experience working in leadership roles and working in a teamwork setting,” Kado said. “It is Central Student Government, it’s not LSA student government, but I’ve had government experience in the past, and I’m willing to take that elections experience and form it into the deputy role.”
CSG confirmed LSA senior Hailey Kozuchowski as Independent Special Prosecutor for elections. Kozuchowski served in this role during the winter 2022 semester, during which she brought a case to the Central Student Judiciary on whether a candidate should be disqualified from the March CSG elections.
CSG also confirmed LSA junior McLaren Lindsey as Deputy Commissioner for Events and Outreach, who will be responsible for bolstering student engagement, especially in the upcoming election.
The assembly then discussed a resolution to establish an annual “What is CSG?” event for U-M students. This resolution would create a task force to plan the event open to all assembly members.
LSA sophomore Jacob Amspaugh, sponsor of the resolution, said he believes this event would increase student engagement with CSG.
“I feel like we need to promote more engagement in CSG,” Amspaugh said. “(The resolution is) a good way to introduce people who may not be familiar with CSG to CSG, especially if we have this event before the election because that can inspire people to run.”
LSA sophomore Olivia O’Connell said she felt the creation of a task force specifically for this event is unnecessary, citing personal experience with event planning.
“I work for the Center for Campus Involvement, so I order, plan (and) set up catering for every event that I do,” O’Connell said. “One person could plan this event in a few hours … This does not need an entire task force to plan.”
Amspaugh said he believes the task force would ensure collaborative decision making and help balance the workload of planning the event.
“The purpose of having a task force is to kind of make sure one person isn’t making all the decisions (and) that it’s a collaborative approach,” Amspaugh said. “I want this to be an assembly collaborating to do stuff so that it’s not a dictatorship.”
The resolution was ultimately referred back to the committees on communications, finance and resolutions for further review.
CSG then discussed a resolution to allocate funding for a cross-cultural student organization event, which was ultimately referred back to the communication and finance committees. Engineering junior Maria Fields, sponsor of the resolution, said this event will create a space to bring students together across different cultures and center the work of student organizations.
“The whole point of (the event) is to really give people an opportunity to experience other people’s cultures,” Fields said. “I think it’d be really cool for the sake of actually experiencing diversity to have a whole bunch of different student (organizations) at one place all at once.”
Fields said while she is hoping to receive funding from CSG or the Student Organization Funding Committee in some capacity, she will hold the event regardless.
“No matter how this conversation goes, I’m going to do the event,” Fields said. “I’ve already booked the room and everything. But I was hoping that CSG could provide some support in this, particularly in the funding.”
Daily Staff Reporter Samantha Rich can be reached at sammrich@umich.edu.
Daily News Contributor Courtney Plaza can be reached at cbplaza@umich.edu.