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ASMSU seeks editorial control over yearbook

January 18, 2001

While ASMSU will have an official logo embedded on future volumes of the Red Cedar Log, several of its representatives want ASMSU to leave a more significant mark on the publication.

ASMSU’s policy committee rejected a bill Tuesday that would grant the Red Cedar Log Advisory Committee and the ASMSU Student Assembly editorial control over the yearbook.

“The purpose of the bill is to create accountability with ASMSU because of a historical consistency of misrepresentation for our minority population,” said Bryan Newland, the North American Indian Student Organization representative for the ASMSU Student Assembly.

Although the failed measure was not endorsed by the policy committee, supporters have called on minority students to gather at the assembly’s weekly meeting tonight in support of the bill.

Final approval of the Red Cedar Log is held only by Editor in Chief Rianne Jones. The publication also has an advisory committee composed of five student government members and two Red Cedar Log representatives. The committee can only make recommendations that the yearbook is not obliged to follow.

Student Assembly Vice Chairperson of Internal Affairs Shane Waller also intends to introduce a new bill during the meeting tonight that would eliminate the advisory committee and give sole editorial power to an assembly vote.

Yet Jones says no changes in approval procedure are necessary because the yearbook has made significant efforts to further diversity within its pages and improve its overall operation.

“The yearbook is running more smoothly than it has for years and everyone sees that,” Jones said.

To ensure campuswide inclusion in the publication, the Red Cedar Log has reserved 60 pages for registered student organizations and sent out e-mails to about 410 groups at the end of the summer and again at the beginning of the fall semester, Jones said. Organizations were asked to return the form along with five pictures to be included in the yearbook.

“We wanted to make sure that the book represents everybody,” Jones said.

Because registered student organization space in the publication is on a first come, first serve basis, Newland says minority groups, which should be an essential part of the book, haven’t always had the chance to be included.

Heated debate initially arose when Newland introduced two bills proposing the changes in approval procedure during the Student Assembly’s last meeting of the fall semester on Dec. 6. It was sent to the policy committee through a near-unanimous vote by the assembly.

Supporters of the bill also believe ASMSU deserves a say in the publication because the undergraduate student government supplies a majority of the Red Cedar Log’s funding.

ASMSU provides the salaries for paid staff members of the yearbook and in 1999 added $3 to the existing $10 ASMSU tax specifically for the Red Cedar Log’s budget.

But Jones says that the yearbook has every intention of becoming less dependent on the student government’s financing.

“Our goal is to ask for less and less money from ASMSU,” Jones said. “We will always be a part of ASMSU, but it will come to the point where we fund ourselves.”

Despite hearing extensive discussion on the issue, Kendall Sykes, Student Assembly chairperson, says that he is still unsure which way the vote will go.

“I don’t think it will be clear cut,” Sykes said. “No matter what happens, someone is going to walk away with hard feelings.”

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