ASMSU holds a General Assembly meeting on Feb. 27, 2020.
—As the student body finishes the semester remotely, the Associated Students of Michigan State University, or ASMSU, will be continuing to meet online — starting with Zoom meeting Thursday.
“ASMSU has never played more of an important role than now in ensuring that needs are met. There is no blueprint to what we are facing,” ASMSU President Mario Kakos stated via text. “It is important that we continue to fulfill our mission and serve students during these uncertain times.”
According to Kakos, event planning, class councils and administrative meetings will be held via Zoom, while staff meetings will be held on Google Classroom.
Undergraduate students can vote for the General Assembly representatives for their college in elections held online as well from March 30 to April 5 at 11:59 pm, according to an email sent to students.
The ballot will include tax referendums by ASMSU for undergraduate students, James Madison College for JMC students, and University Apartments Council of Residents for students living in university apartments.
Additionally students will be able to vote for the General Assembly of their respective colleges.
In light of recent circumstances and the spread of COVID-19, the GA passed these four resolutions by voice majority:
A resolution for professors to accommodate students who are negatively affected or are at high risk of contracting COVID-19, assuring they will not be penalized.
A resolution to advocate for MSU, the City of East Lansing, and the State of Michigan to provide financial relief to MSU students after classes were completely moved online.
A resolution supporting the petition created to request administration to have all classes for the Spring 2020 semester be graded under a pass/fail system so as to not affect students’ grade point average. The petition was started by Interfraternity Council representative Will Bulkowski and has nearly 11 thousand signatures as of March 22.
A resolution that if they are to remove the cap on domestic students’ work restrictions, the same should be done for international students. They are currently only allowed to work 20 hours a week on-campus. The bill states that some students cannot continue to live and work on campus in these times and need to be allowed to go beyond that number and look for off-campus jobs.
The GA also passed a bill to add $549.88 to the funding of promotional materials for the 2020 Spring Concert featuring Hippo Campus and Daya, which is now being postponed to Fall 2020.
Additionally, they passed a bill to offer land acknowledgement at the beginning of every GA meeting. They also threw in the idea of having a plaque outside of the room in addition to this acknowledgment.
A resolution to advocate MSU to continue prohibiting facial recognition was also passed.
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