"It's overwhelming if you haven't done student government before," said Kevin Ogden, new College of Natural Science representative for Student Assembly, who attended with Thomas Cooke and Brian Forest. "It helped explain what ASMSU is and why we are here."

Although only three representatives attended, Andrew Schepers, Student Assembly vice chair of internal affairs, said they hope to expand the program in the future.

"They have an opportunity to sit down one-on-one with ASMSU advisers," he said. "We'd like to see it grow with key officials from the university and city so they can see who the student leaders are."

No one has announced publicly that they are running for the chair positions.

"It's one of the things we like to keep secret around here," Schepers said. "Part of it is tradition and part of is that people just don't turn in their applications until the day of."

That means the new representatives might never have met their potential leaders until the night of their first meeting.

Each assembly elects a chair, as well as internal and external vice chairs.

"I think it would nice to have a little bit of background, like the important items that have come to the assembly," Ogden said.

That's why all representatives will receive a copy of the candidates' applications, hear a five-minute speech and have a chance to question each candidate.

"But I think learning about them the night of, you can still get a pretty good judge of character," Ogden said.

Academic Assembly chairperson Jared English agreed, and added that not having prior prejudices of a candidate can be both a help and a hindrance.

"Every candidate comes with a clean slate," he said. "But you could easily get a smooth talker who comes in and speaks a good line. But in the past, assemblies have been pretty good at distinguishing that."

As a safeguard in case representatives find they've made a poor choice, assemblies have the opportunity to remove a chair who doesn't perform well.

"That always is a concern," Schepers said. "That's why they always have the option to recall."

College Contacts

New ASMSU representatives take their posts on April 20 and 22. All e-mail addresses are @msu.edu.

* New college representative