Michigan Student Assembly representatives apologized at last night”s meeting for tensions resulting from a resolution passed last week in support of U.S. strikes against Afghanistan.
- Paul Wong
- Pilosophy graduate student Justin Shubow debates with philosophy Prof. Elizabeth Anderson about affirmative action last night in the Modern Languages Building.<br><br>YENA RYU/Daily
“It is an absolute waste of our time to be arguing like we did last week,” said LSA Rep. David Goldman.
Goldman said the most important objective of MSA should be to complete projects for students.
LSA Rep. Fadi Kiblawi resigned from his seat last night because he thought MSA did not appropriately address constituent concerns about the resolution in support of the government.
“I think what happened was completely undemocratic and I resign because I don”t feel MSA is the legitimate student government,” Kiblawi said.
Engineering Rep. Eric Roeder said students have reason to think MSA is a productive student government but that image was destroyed last week when the assembly”s internal conflict was made public.
“I don”t like seeing the assembly attacked,” said MSA Vice President Jessica Cash. “I feel it”s my responsibility to network and I failed miserably. We all felt really terrible about this, whether or not we supported it.”
Like Cash, most MSA representatives are eager to leave the tension of last week behind them and focus on campus issues that directly affect students.
MSA committees and commissions are working on several projects for students, including changes to Wolverine Access, residents” rights door signs and general campus improvement issues.
The Academic Affairs Commission is working with the LSA Student Government to increase the number of hours per day Wolverine Access is available to students.
“We want to make the hours more accessible, especially during registration time,” Goldman said.
Goldman said the commission wants to improve the link from the LSA Course Guide to times and availability in Wolverine Access and create a display of distribution credits in individual course guides.
In addition, the Student Rights Commission created a residents” rights sign meant to be displayed on residence hall doors. The sign explains what to do if a police officer or resident adviser knocks on a student”s door without a search warrant.
However, campus improvement task initiative chair Steve Pietrangelo said some of MSA”s immediate concerns are to synchronize all clocks on campus and to fix broken elevators in the David M. Dennison Building.
Another issue facing the assembly is the upcoming fall election. It will be held Nov. 14 and 15, and declarations of candidacy and registrations for parties are now available in the MSA office, 3909 Michigan Union.