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A slice of campus life written by an MTU student

Circle K members participate in a recent student organizations fair. ASMTU could effect how organizations, like Circle K, are represented and how they receive funding.

ASMTU: Looking at change

Since last week, one of the most heated debates on campus has been about the opportunity for students to vote for a replacement of our current student government. This replacement is called ASMTU, which stands for “Associated Students of Michigan Tech University.” This change is becoming a large debate because many student organizations feel that aside from not being well-informed about what ASMTU would involve, funding could be jeopardized, smaller groups may end up being under-represented, and students are currently voting for a “framework” of government that is not fully developed as of yet. Two open forums were held last week to try to tackle some of the confusion and frustration that many student organizations seem to be feeling.

As an active student involved in a variety of student organizations, I realized this vote was very important to our student body. Every student at Michigan Tech pays a Student Activity Fee, and voting for ASMTU entails the role of that fee. That’s why I felt it was necessary to learn a little more about what ASMTU would mean for students.

Under the proposed structure of ASMTU, the student government would be broken into three branches: Executive, Judicial, and Legislative. The Judicial Branch would replace the University Student Judicial Board.

The Legislative branch would be split into two: the House of Representative, which would handle Student Organization issues, and then the Senate, which would handle university policies, student issues, and lobbying. The House of Representatives would primarily be made of student organization representatives. Similar organizations would be grouped into “Boards.” These boards would include the categories of academic/professional, cultural, faith, honor, service, programming, media, Greek (currently the Inter-Fraternal Council), sports/recreation, residence halls (currently the Inter-Residence Hall Council), and special interest student organizations. The boards would then bring student organization presidents together to discuss issues such as publicity, budgeting, event scheduling, and standards and practices. The Senate would be made up of representatives based on their school or college. The number of representatives would depend on the size of the school or college in which they were enrolled.

Another unique factor of ASMTU is the integration of undergraduate and graduate students. Our current student government is separated into the Undergraduate Student Government and the Graduate Student Council. ASMTU would give the pool of graduate students 2 representatives in the proposed Senate. However, the Graduate Student Council would still exist independently, with hopes to incorporate it into ASMTU in the future.

The current student government claims that ASMTU “will improve communication between student organizations, encourage commitment from representatives, increase opportunities for student involvement, focus more on university policies and student concerns, and diversify representation.” The change is proposed so that more student voices will be heard, communication will be strengthened, and so the student government can do a better job of handling the increasing amount of student organizations appearing on our campus. With a current number of over 200 student organizations, the current student government is simply getting burnt out and is dealing with a large student activity fee that is becoming too complex.

One of the biggest concerns that comes with the acceptance of ASMTU is the role of first-year students. In the House of Representatives, ASMTU classifies representation by academic unit by holding elections in the spring. This means that first-year students would not be able to run for office until nearing their second year at Michigan Tech. This is primarily due to the fact that many first-year students change their majors during their first year. However, to keep first-year students involved, the proposed ASMTU constitution allows for an additional number of Senate seats for freshmen. Elections for those seats would take place during the first few weeks of the fall semester.

Until next week,

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