Huss and Kannan were supported by James Madison professors and Reclaim MSU members Andaluna Borcila, Anna Pegler-Gordon and Betsy Riley.

Reclaim MSU’s policy proposal, which they presented to ASMSU last school year, consists of two main points: to make sure the active presidential search is not undertaken without the participation of faculty and students, and to amend the Michigan constitution to create four additional positions in the governing boards of MSU, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, set aside specifically for undergraduate, graduate and faculty representation.

ASMSU members raised concerns about the viability of the plan, specifically whether the board would be supportive of these changes. 

“Reclaim MSU came to us last year with this exact same proposal,” Harrison Greenleaf, representative of the Council of Students with Disabilities, said. “We (saw) these problems and some of us agreed, but the problem is, what are the actual things that we can accomplish?”

Kannan and Huss said, because of this time in the university's history, the issues were too important to be amended. 

“This is what we’re going to push for,” Huss said. “We’re going to push for (the Board of Trustees) to have this change. We’re going to say that we’re going to resist them until then… this is what we need to ask the board for. If we can’t determine a clear incentive, I don’t think that should push us back, because I don’t think we should say that just because it might not be realistic by some people’s standards, we shouldn’t push for this. This is what it takes to rebuild our campus, to reclaim our power.”

Members of Reclaim MSU expressed direct criticism of the current Board of Trustees. 

James Madison professor and member of Reclaim MSU Anna Pegler-Gordon said the board could appear in a much more favorable light if they endorsed the Reclaim MSU plan. 

“I would say the incentive for the board is to be able to actually learn better and be more responsive to the MSU community and stop looking like they’re completely out of touch,” Pegler-Gordon said. “They don’t care what anyone else at MSU thinks. One of the ways we can see that is that Penn State now has faculty and student representation on the board after their sexual assault scandal, which was considerably less terrible than ours. So, I think being responsive to something like that and showing that you’re responsive would be a significant incentive.” 

Trustees Melanie Foster and Dianne Byrum were present at the meeting and spoke about the presidential search. 

They also fielded questions from members of the general assembly.

Several members asked if Foster and Byrum would support the Reclaim MSU proposal, and Music College representative Elizabeth Medlin was able to reduce the question to a yes or no. 

Byrum said there are a lot of shortcomings with Reclaim MSU's proposal. 

“I don’t know exactly how to frame my answer because I really believe that working together incrementally is going to be more successful than saying ‘this way or nothing.’ So, you have this Reclaim proposal. It doesn’t get support, where do you go from there?” Byrum said. “You’ve drawn lines, and you’ve said, if you want representative democracy on campus, this is it. Take it or leave it. I don’t subscribe to that. I believe there are other ways we can build more representation and work together than this one isolated proposal.”

The presidential search is well underway, with 22 student input sessions held and the position is posted. A more in-depth position description is being drafted. Though an outside firm is officially handling the search, the 19-member search committee is an integral part of the process before the board makes the final decision. 

The next committee meeting for ASMSU will be Nov. 29.