ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government, recently implemented a new student caucus that will gather at-large students, which are student-held positions in University Council, to discuss issues with each other before presenting their concerns at council meetings.

The caucus meetings essentially will inform all student members, including at-large students, about campuswide issues, giving them confidence to speak about them at the University Council meetings. ASMSU has had issues with at-large students not regularly attending council meetings, and the caucus meetings are aimed at solving that problem.

To put it simply, ASMSU is setting up meetings because students aren’t going to meetings. Having members skip meetings definitely is a problem, but the correct way to solve it is not by adding additional meetings.

If student government can’t get students to participate, adding more required meetings only will push people further away from wanting to participate. It will require another time commitment from at-large student members — something many college students can’t afford.

They also are dealing with some at-large members being uninformed about campuswide issues, and this might be a reason students aren’t attending meetings. Although the caucus would attempt to make members more informed, it is likely that an additional time commitment would push people away rather than pull them in.

If officials looked at ways to make joining groups as a student representative more appealing to students, they might have members more dedicated to their duties. Instead, now they have students who seem to either not know or not care about the importance of student government.

Students who fail to show enthusiasm about student issues at MSU shouldn’t have positions on the University Council in the first place.

ASMSU should focus on looking into recruiting people to hold at-large student positions and bringing in people with different outlooks than those already in the government. Looking at ASMSU and student representative groups externally rather than internally would be beneficial to the student body and members alike.

Instead of focusing on solving the issue of student participation, ASMSU is trying to clear up two problems, participation and education, with one solution. And the solution proposed — meetings — appears to be more of the same.

ASMSU meetings are open to everyone, with time available for public comments. Officials could encourage at-large students to attend their regular ASMSU meetings, instead of having to implement an additional caucus meeting specifically for discussing certain issues that are already brought up at the initial meetings.

ASMSU is looking at ways to include other students in the discussion of campuswide issues, but the new student caucus is not the correct way to do so. Instead, it might only push people away from wanting to participate, a negative circumstance during a time when current officials hope to bring in lots of student involvement: before ASMSU’s student elections in April.