It’s important for MSU’s undergraduate student governing groups like the Residence Halls Association and ASMSU to foster relationships with similar organizations from other institutions to address student issues and concerns in the best ways possible.
Unfortunately, maintaining those relationship is not easy.
On one side, there is ASMSU, which has been involved with the Associated Students of the Big Ten since the conglomerate was formed in 1993. On Sunday, that relationship was dissolved much to the chagrin of MSU’s representatives.
Then there is RHA, which decided last week to cut off its affiliation with the Michigan Organization of Residence Hall Associations and instead focus its efforts in the pursuit of forming a similar Big Ten halls association.
RHA representatives made their decision because they feel MSU has outgrown the issues faced by most Michigan universities and feel a Big Ten-oriented group could focus on similar issues between larger schools.
In this case RHA has made the right move. The University of Michigan dissolved its RHA relationship with the statewide organization three years ago.
There are more than 14,000 students who call MSU’s residence halls home. That number is considerably larger than at the state’s smaller institutions.
Given the similar size of institutions in the Big Ten, it is obvious these institutions could share more similar living-situation concerns and issues than a statewide relationship could.
We hope RHA’s Big Ten goal can soon become reality.
It’s somewhat ironic that RHA is vying for a similar beneficial relationship that ASMSU once was a part of.
The Associated Students of the Big Ten was formed because representatives for the network of schools wanted a collaborative goal-oriented organization that could be used to share ideas and serve as a greater lobbying force than any one school’s student government.
That relationship has turned into a “drunk fest” and a “mockery of what is was supposed to be” according to ASMSU representatives who attended the weekend conference.
In the future, representatives from the Big Ten schools decided to meet a for a biannual conference, which ASMSU officials don’t plan on attending.
It’s deplorable the students of these universities made the move to dissolve their lobbying force and replace their combined efforts with a meaningless biannual meeting. And its understandable that ASMSU representatives are horrified at the decision.
On the other hand, we hope ASMSU doesn’t entirely give up on the Big Ten affiliation. Perhaps members can work to turn it back around to serve a greater good in the future, despite distress concerning the current situation.
Affiliations with other similar institutions are important to maintain. These relationships benefit students at each of the involved universities through the discussion of similar issues of concern and a greater lobbying power to address those ideas.
We commend both RHA for taking the first steps in the creation of an affiliation that can work to address these greater issues and ASMSU for taking its charge seriously in relationship to its Big Ten affiliation.
