Every year, as a fresh lot of students set foot on campus, a new Central Student Government takes its seats at the helm of the student body.
On Tuesday, for the first time this academic year, CSG President Michael Proppe and Vice President Bobby Dishell, leaders of CSG political party youMICH, will lead a new slate of student body representatives.
As the 2012-2013 academic year came to a close, the CSG executive branch completed a total of 58 projects over eight areas of campus improvement. Former CSG President Manish Parikh and Vice President Omar Hashwi fulfilled all of their election promises — but these achievements were not without struggles.
Graduate students sought secession from CSG, claiming the assembly did not focus due efforts toward their needs despite utilizing funds received from graduate tuition. The student government was forced to spend what Parikh recalls as several hundred hours seeking a resolution.
Like in Winter 2013, when independent candidates Parikh and Hashwi were faced with the task of leading an opposition-dominated Representative Assembly, Proppe and Dishell will lead an assembly dominated by members of opposition party forUM in the wake of election disputes<a> that led to the disqualification of that party’s presidential candidate, who won the popular vote. In May interviews, Proppe and LSA sophomore Pavitra Abraham, forUM’s party chair, both said they didn’t believe party politics would interfere with the efficiency of student government.
“All the representatives will be working on their individualized platforms and will be working with other members of the Assembly to draft their resolutions,” Abraham said. “But they will definitely be able to work (with the executive) to accomplish all goals for the year.”
During Tuesday’s assembly meeting the representatives will discuss and vote on a series of resolutions pertaining to CSG rules and look back on a resolution from the winter pertaining to the increased price of student football season tickets. Additionally, Proppe and Dishell will finalize and present selected nominations to serve as the chairs of the newly created executive commissions and the executive board to the Assembly.
“We’re still in the process of interviewing (candidates),” Proppe said. “We were thrilled with the number of applicants we had; it’s a great problem to have, but it gets bogged down a little bit in terms of processing all of them.”
The assembly meets every Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. on the third floor of the Michigan Union.