MSU’s undergraduate student government, ASMSU, approved a bill to allocate $300,000 to create an endowed scholarship for students, amongst many others at Thursday’s general assembly meeting.
“We want to enrich student experience,” said Michael Mozina, ASMSU vice president for finance and operations. “It is through things like these scholarships that we can show that we are giving back to students in the most meaningful way possible.”
ASMSU President Evan Martinak said the scholarship emphasis will probably be leadership, adding that the criteria for the recipients have not been determined yet.
ASMSU also approved a bill allocating $45,000 for refurbishment of the ASMSU offices in the Student Services Building. ASMSU officials recently have pointed out there were areas filled with espoused asbestos, which is hazardous.
“The offices haven’t been updated since the building was opened (in 1955,)” said ASMSU Vice President for Governmental Affairs Jessica Leacher. “We had interior designers from the university come in (and) the number is their projection of what the costs would be.”
Leacher, who is a member of The State News Board of Directors, said that updating the offices would make the space look more professional and cohesive.
The general assembly also approved a bill to post the bills passed during committee meetings to the ASMSU website a week before the next general assembly meeting. This would give students enough time to look at the bills and come to their representatives with comments concerning them.
“Transparency has been an issue lately,” said Evan Schrage, political science sophomore and ASMSU representative.
Schrage said students need to have an idea of what their student government is discussing.
ASMSU representatives also voted to pass a resolution to allow the student government to advocate against tuition hikes.
This is a process that ASMSU has been involved in, talking to the administration about a constant pattern of tuition hikes, said Mitch Treadwell, environmental and plan biology senior and ASMSU representative.
The resolution would be a springboard for ASMSU to further research into how other schools worked on ensuring that a tuition increase is as minimal as possible, or looking at how other schools achieved a tuition freeze.
Vice President for Academic Affairs Mitch Goheen said the resolution is a formality, adding that the office of the president would have to come back to the general assembly after further research.
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