“At the local level, the leasing laws and student housing need to change,” Strach said. “It’s not fair. What the property rates are at are inflated and the leasing laws are not there for students.”

At the state and federal levels, Strach advocates for increasing state appropriations to the university to decrease tuition rates, as well as increasing the Pell Grant and federal housing loans.

“I’m personally invested in this because I had an epiphany as a state liaison about how we approach policy,” Strach said. “Before I kind of thought that with policy we’re governed by really outdated laws and it’s slow and bureaucratic and that’s such a bad thing ... but I had a tone shift when I realized that it’s not really always such a bad thing. That it’s meant to be slow and it felt empowering. ... This is us paving the future for our advocacy if we can change those laws, which I believe that we can.” 

Investigation of the university’s investment portfolio

A presentation by student representatives from the Ad Hoc University Sustainable Investment Working Group called on the Board of Trustees to increase the transparency of their investment portfolio and rely on more diverse consulting firms that have experience in MSU’s environmental, social and governance goals. The recommendations came after the group investigated the board’s allocation of the $4.5 million endowment funds received in the fall of 2021. The full report can be found online.

Bill to approve undergraduate delegates to the University Council

Introduced by ASMSU vice president for academic affairs Aaron Iturralde, this bill was unanimously passed. It approved 18 new undergraduate candidates to serve on the University Council and university-level committees.

“University Council was looking into, a couple years ago, limiting the student spots because we haven’t had them filled in years, so this is a huge deal that there are only two spots open for University Council,” ASMSU president Jo Kovach said. “We are representing students in that space and that’s really positive.”

Bill to declare Election Day a university-wide holiday

This bill, introduced by the College of Social Science Rep. Alyssa Konesky, called on the university to declare Election Day as a university-wide holiday. Classes would not be held with the goal of increasing students’ ability to vote.

The bill passed unanimously. 

Bill to combine the sophomore and junior class councils

This bill is identical to a bill passed last year that combined the sophomore and junior class councils after they faced low participation rates. The bill was introduced at last Thursday’s ASMSU committee meeting by vice president for internal administration Carl Austin Miller Grondin. Combining the classes yielded the most successful ASMSU events of the year, Grondin said. The bill passed unanimously.

The next ASMSU General Assembly meeting will be held on Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. in the International Center room 115.