Exec. board controversy occurs at MSA meeting

Assembly members rejected the appointment, which was made by MSA
President Jason Mironov, because they saw it as a political move.
Russiello has not served on MSA’s Budget Priorities
Committee.

MSA Rep. Ashley Whitfield said she was concerned with the
appointment, because other applicants who sat on the BPC felt that
the selection was questionable, given Russiello’s
relationship with Students First.

But Mironov said he chose Russiello because she came in with a
distinct plan about how to deal with budget cuts.

Russiello noted her experience on the assembly and expressed
disappointment at the conclusion reached by the assembly.

“Although I understand the image of
‘political’ parties in execs, I am saddened that such
an image outweighed my qualifications,” Russiello said.
“However, my work regarding the gap between students and the
administration has not stopped-just faced an obstacle.”

Left without a treasurer, the assembly will attempt to appoint
another candidate at next week’s meeting, Mironov said.

Jesse Levine and Elliot Wells-Reid were approved as General
Counsel and Chief for Staff respectively, with little difficulty.
Both are members of Students First.

E. Royster Harper vice president of Student Affairs, visited MSA
chambers last night to discuss the formation of a standing
committee to influence student input in budget affairs. This
committee is a result of recent student protests regarding budget
cuts.

“I’m trying to meet with as many student groups as
possible to get student’s input on what the committee ought
to look like,” Harper said.

As of right now there are several ways that students are
involved in the Division for Student Affairs, such as the student
advisory boards from the Ginsberg Community Center and through
surveys and program evaluations, Harper said.

“I have had revelations and lots of learning, in the past
two to three weeks,” Harper said. “I have learned that
a lot of structures that we have in place work really well when
money is not going to be cut and works differently when money is
being cut.”

MSA Rep. Russell Garber questioned why the budget applied to the
Greek system, which is non-organizational.

Mironov said he wanted to offer MSA’s assistance on
forming the standing committee. “I would like to extend the
dedication to assemble the team to work on budget cuts
group,” Mironov said. “This is one of the most
important jobs of the assembly.”

Also last night, in a unanimous vote LSA Student Government
passed a resolution to revive the college’s Student
Judiciary. Students in the College of Literature, Science and the
Arts have an additional outlet to voice their opinions on the
actions carried out by their student government.

Currently, students wanting to appeal LSA-SG resolutions,
elections or other actions such as monetary allocations must go to
the Central Student Judiciary in the Michigan Student Assembly. The
LSA-SG Student Judiciary will be available for the same services
starting Monday.

“Students can appeal and have a hearing with LSA
Judiciary, who would make a decision,” LSA-SG Vice President
and junior Ryan Ford said. “That decision would be the final
decision and they couldn’t appeal it with CSJ.”

Because the Student Judiciary will be solely comprised of
members of LSA, students in the college will be better represented
than in CSJ, where justices can come from any school in the
University, LSA-SG General Counsel Stuart Wagner said.

Wagner also said enacting the judiciary will help to distinguish
LSA-SG from MSA.

“The goal of this change is to allow LSA-SG to govern
themselves,” Stuart said. “It will allow us to separate
ourselves from MSA and be our own government.”

But CSJ Justice Michael Schaolman was worried the resolution
will deprive new CSJ justices of experience and it may discourage
students from utilizing CSJ.

“(New justices) were just initiated last month so
we’ve had little experience and this will mean even
less,” said Shaolman, a sophomore in the Business School.
“I hope (CSJ) is still an accessible source that’s
going to be used.”

The new justices will be appointed tomorrow and Friday. Any LSA
student who is not affiliated with LSA-SG is eligible to apply.
Applications can be found on the LSA-SG website and are due today,
although LSA-SG has tried to spread the word about the new
positions for the past week. Following an interview process, six
Justices will be appointed while the Chief Justice will be elected
internally.