ASM stipends and political mudslinging

As you’ve no doubt seen by now, there’s a potential bylaw violation on the table via Max Love.

This is loaded with all sorts of political implications and I think  I owe it to everyone involved to be as transparent as how this story came about. As transparent, that is, as a few off the record comments will allow me. So to be clear — here’s what was on the record and can help explain this mess.

On Sunday night, I went to meet with the MPOWER candidates for the purposes of posting some of their statements here. There’s enough in there to dedicate to a future post (and by future, I mean in an hour) and I intend to do so.

In any case, I sat down with a few people — Tina Trevino Murphy, Evan Hurley (who is helping them organize?), Peter Lorenz, Zach Ivins, Ace Hillard, Jasmine Savoy, Dakota Alcantara-Camacho, Beth Huang and a couple of other people who popped in. The conversation went well, although it was very obvious that Tina was the spokesperson of the group and was advising people on what could be said on or off the record. While the control was a bit annoying, the individual candidates were refreshing — I would cite Jasmine Savoy as being particularly well-equipped to jump into the ASM fray.  Oh, and Sam Stevenson, but that’s just because we even endorsed him as a member of FACES. He’s leftist, yes, but he’s far more reasonable than most I know.

In any case, at the end of our meeting, I started interviewing candidates individually. Before I pulled aside Ace, Tina and Evan turned to me and told me to come back to them after I’m done because “we might have a story for you.” That’s fine. I’ll take stories from any group, as long as it has merit.

After meeting with Ace, Max Love came to the MPOWER table and started getting his laptop out and searching for a few things. He asked if he could talk to me about something. He then pulled me over and showed me the stipend bylaws and started explaining that he had been looking through the bylaws and found that Junger and Williams seemed to be in violation and should be removed immediately. I told him I’d look into it and went back to interviews. Later on that night, when I interviewed Tina, I asked if the news they were going to forward was what Love told me. She said yes and we moved on.

Yesterday, I told Adelaide about it and told her to look into it. If there’s merit to the allegations, run a story. If not, then don’t run anything. Despite the arguments by Max that this was only Max doing this and an e-mail he sent me saying exactly the same thing — emphasizing that he didn’t want this to be a smear campaign — the connection to MPOWER is hard to argue against. Sure, the slate isn’t working toward this bylaw issue, but the guy helping with publicity and the defacto spokesperson are certainly involved. You can argue its now connected to MPOWER, but that’s the problem with slates — you sign on to the platform and, despite any differences you have, inherit the brand. You take that good and the bad. So when two point people for the slate do this, it reflects on the slate.

Anyway, she looked at the bylaws, realizes there is something here and calls Junger to get some comment. Then Junger comments to the fact that it seems like they all made a big oversight — SSFC, SC, Financial staff, etc. At that point, we decide to run the story because it does seem like something has gone wrong here. Not a front page story, of course, because it doesn’t actually merit that high of a placement. It’s news, but it’s not HUGE news.

From there, I tell Adelaide to call Max Love because of the fact that this obviously came from him. She has him guide her through the bylaws to have him explain it from his perspective, then attempts to get him to comment on it given the fact that he’s going to bring this forward. Love makes his comment that he didn’t want to do this until after the election (which he told me as well) and Adelaide tells him that it will be running tomorrow regardless.

Max was very upset and for good reason. In the middle of Adelaide and myself trying to figure out a good way to run this while not giving anyone political cover, I met with Tom Templeton for the post you saw yesterday on this page. In the middle of that interview, I got a call from Tina Trevino Murphy. She asked first about the story and if it was going out as is. I told her it was and used the political cover rationale. She then told me they’d be coming out with the complaint that night.

I can only assume that our story forced Love and Trevino-Murphy’s hand. I’m sure that if we had spiked the story, it would have stayed under the radar until after the election.

In any case, we wrote what we had from Junger, Williams, Love and later Gosselin, who spoke as legal counsel. We also asked for documents from the minutes, which Williams said he could not get us that night. I’ll see if I can get them today and post them to explain this a little clearer and point out the specific votes being cited here.

In any case, we waited until about 1 a.m. for the complaint. Here is is. As you can see, it doesn’t do the best job of laying out the facts of the case. This is because it was rushed along hastily as a result of the report we were going to file. I doubt this goes anywhere because of the lack of information laid out here, but even if it did — you have about two weeks left in SC tenures. What’s the point?

I’m sure accountability is one. But even then, why not and why push for immediate removal? What does that help? Does that teach people a lesson?

Whatever the rationale given, this has a far greater political impact on the leadership process and they know that. You’d have to be stupid not to. Now, I’m sure Max Love would even admit that this reflects on the people running that they’ve been talking about bylaws regarding stipends for a few weeks now and for them not to notice this speaks to their job performance.

It speaks to the inherently flawed structure of the bylaws, which is why they’re going to revise them next year. To assume that this was a money grab is quite a stretch in my opinion.

As for the validity — it seems like Brandon Williams would be out of compliance on a technicality, but the spirit of the first exemption is obvious. Templeton seems pretty off the hook as he wasn’t a member when the initial vote came through on the internal budget. They reopened it for the tenant ratings website and voted again. Paulson indicates this could be the case. Gosselin? Don’t know. Need to see how he voted or if he did vote at all, since there was a period of him serving as chair where he wouldn’t have voted on it anyway. Junger seems to be implicated as he did vote on the increase for the chair and might have voted for the internal budget as well.

The issue — some unanswered questions on who made mistakes and very little point to make an issue of this other than to point the finger.

I can’t tell you how pissed off I am that this is how the election is going AGAIN this year. I’m already hearing accusations on the other side too which, I’m sure we’ll have to examine as well. But if this is the sort of thing that’s going on now, imagine what’s going to happen when the next council meets. Sides and slates have always been an impediment to progress, unless a slate wins all the seats. Which I’ve been told only happened once in the late 90s.

With all this infighting, it almost makes me wish I had run. I suppose I’m a grad student, so I still could given the relatively low threshold for write ins, if I quit the Herald.

But then again, I love the Herald.

If anyone has any information or complaints to add to this post, sound off. But its a messy situation that really didn’t have to happen. A real shame.

Hearing from the candidates #5 – Tom Templeton

I think that next year moving forward, I’ve been working a lot with the Greeks and there’s a lot I want to touch on — campus safety has been one. Lighting initiatives, more campus buses – we’re in a renegotiation year for SAFE Bus – there’s also been discussions about refunding SAFEcab. Its a bit short sighted, not a comprehensive enough plan for safety issues. But there are some legitimate concerns with the cuts but I think that they’ve been kind of answers. The committee that cut said we’ll work with you when we cut it.

Worked this year on MIU with Chancellor Martin – getting the student oversight board and the oversight board student appointees was big. About 6 million left in allocations for curricular development and faculty hires. Calls for proposals again, we’ll go through that again. We’re working to maintain the student input and interest issues. Another issue on MIU we’ve not been talking about alot is the pledge to raise 20 mil for financial aid. I think ASM can partner with UW foundation to find donors to increase our financial aid. That along with working with state and local legislators and push for certain bills and student initiatives overarches a reinvestment in higher education campaign. We need legislators to understand that we’re concerned, invested in the higher ed issues. That ties into a bigger issue of the three rs: Recruitment retention and reputation. What can we do to recruit and retain the best students and make sure that they have a great reputation nationally and internationally. We were able to get two students appointed to the search and screen for the admissions director. Then looking campuswide to see initiative wide what we can do to aid that. Important to remember faculty too – when we pushed for domestic partnership benefits, that was a big thing. MIU is really helping for recruitment and hopefully it will help with retention too. I think that there’s some movement possible in the rankings if we focus on that. I think that staying true to student issues – expanding shared gov, providing student services, etc. —  but advocating for students in DC and at the capitol.

I’m not overly invovled with the financial allocation side, I think there’s opportunities for SC to weigh in with that. I think SSFC needs to weigh in on that. I think staying as VPN as I can, I don’t want to see student groups not be funded. I think it’s pretty clear how to get GSSF funding. I think there are finance grants and operations grants. I think you have to be cognizant of fiscal responsibility. The no new seg fee campaign — it sounds sexy, but you can’t say that and say “we want to fund this and this and this as well.” We want to fund services that provide the best value for campus as well.

SC failure?

I think that there’s definitely points we can point to. Structurally its in error of how we’re structure. We saw this year SC liking to pass resolutions or endorsements — there’s no real action or follow-up on it. That’s part of the fault of SC not asking for writing for any action. Plus we don’t have anyone to follow up.

I would agree with Johnson’s assessment. You run into the problem of SC with a clash of really involved members and some strictly just ASM SC members who don’t read the agenda, etc. That’s been a philosophical question of what SC is supposed to do. Its about setting policy for representing students. And I think that good communication and cross communication is key to that — can’t really say that has happened this year. I think in this year, as opposed to past years, we’ve made great strides in that whereas past sessions have failed.

The elected reps should really be coming up with the ideas of what the campaigns are and getting them done. We set some policies this year. For example, we set a bylaw saying that intern projects had to be approved by student council. We need to decide where our resources are being placed. Adam Johnson has a point. In theory, every SC member has to attend a committee. We tried to put in more accountability policies and it failed. Certain members of SC thought some requirements we tried to institute were too strict. Need to mandate where council was happening. And also directing leaders. I think that if the representative in engineering saying there’s a certain issue that we should be addressing, he should write something up and push it forward.

Approved some through the intern bylaw – I can’t recall what they were specifically. We pushed forward a committee on work-study programs. Tyler wrote his report for the Fund 128. Sometimes its just a stamp from SC on committee initiatives. Our resources are limited and we should be able to say here’s where we need to spend our time and money. I would put emphasis into the safety issues, textbook swap, legislator lobbying and coming up with a way of coming to SC, going back to their constituents and speaking to them.

SACGB – I think Katy has been great and moved a lot of stuff forward and admitted her faults where they needed to be. Philosophically for myself, the way the SACGB is set up is that VC is set there. The initial idea behind it was to have someone really dedicated to the process somehow involved in it. Do I think its necessary for VC to be there? I don’t know know if its fully necessary. Could be another SC member. I wasn’t able to be in attendance and I had different events for my VC duties, so I wasn’t there to be at the first allocation interviews. Wasn’t there when the initial VPN violations were brought up. When it was brought to my attention that they had solved the issue, that was the meeting I was sitting at. Williams had brought up that they might be violating VPN. I was also told I wasn’t allowed to vote and said that if we’ve been warned and I can see lawsuits, I removed myself. To show how serious I was about what I thought they were getting themselves into. The rest of the proceedings made it through without any grave errors. I don’t think  any real big issues. I think that was by and large issues. There’s talk of moving it under SSFC for that reasons. There’s no check. SACGB thinks it shouldn’t be under SSFC. They think they have the same level of power as SSFC does. So I think they’re misguided in that view.

SC bylaws allow SC to move it. It would be taking the oversight of the allocations process and putting the check — which currently doesn’t exist — and allowing SSFC to approve or reject the allocation process. Majority of SACGB thought SC should be the check.

Meeting the candidates #4 – Adam Johnson

Adam Johnson is the current Chair of Legislative Affairs. I asked him a few questions about his candidacy.

[N.B.: The notes below are not verbatim quotes, but my summary of his answers. I was writing them down as he said them, so they're as summary specific as possible.]

1. Given your work this year on Leg Affairs, what do you want to accomplish in another year in ASM?

First and foremost, a lot of the work is a continuation of the stuff I’ve done next year. Biggest things I want to work on as a personal project was a Big 10 legislative caucus. Having a coferencewide institution to plan a comprehensive leg. platform but with Milwaukee not in the council we don’t have any peer institutions. Being more involved in the other Big 10 schools. By teaming up with other Big 10 schools and forming the most prestigious conference in the country we have a lot more leverage in Congress. USSA has a different focus is too costly, but this is free except for travel costs. We get to the frame the debate, it won’t be like USSA with staff framing it. This is a campus level collaborative. Plan on having a more formalized proposal up before the end of the semester. Get the other govs in the Big 10 to sign on and have a conference and work right away.

I want to follow through with some of the campaigns I’ve started in Leg Affairs, obviously campus safety is a priority – doing stuff on Langdon, have Tom Templeton work with the fraternities. Get that done. Additionally, I want to keep working on increasing relations between ASM and the city, I think the strides we’ve taken this year have been good but there’s always room for improvement. We gained respect but we keep the respect if we continue to be engaged at all levels of government – especially high speed transit. Hard to make it sexy, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look at it.

One of the last big points that I had was I want to continue with some campaigns that were starting right now — Gubenatorial candidates to campus – bring them to the general student body, need an open — Kyle Woolwich [ASM Leg Affairs VC] was working on this, he’s calling Tom Barrett right now, but that is something we have to obviously see about depending how this election pans out. In addition to that I’ve been working with Brandon Williams on the Tenant Services – close to UW purchasing to get request for bids placed out there. Then we can focus on these student housing fairs here. Focus on improving renting for all students and that’s something we see has been really lacking, Margret Brown of Steve Brown and Jim Stopple of MPM has been focused on how to make this a better experience.

What exactly were you looking to do with safety?

The Lighting Ordinance was what I was specifically working on – met with the captain of the downtown area (Mary Schauf) we’ve discussed trouble areas, programs to increase awareness of where they might be vulnerable, because prevention is obviously the easiest way to stay safe. Increasing police routes in different areas based upon crime density maps. State Street has beeen under fire for a couple of incidents — they’re adjusting their routes to help address this – I’ve got a fairly narrowly focused mandate.

Is there any merit to MPOWER arguments that SAFEcab needs to have some funding restored?

SAFE cab – I think that the arguments brought up by SSFC VC Romenesko and the reasons why it was cut down to the level it was now really tell a lot about it and it was a decision based upon what constitutes abuse and what constitutes actual safety needs. The 150 people this would have effective were not using it for safety reasons but convenience reasons. The way in which we can reduce fees – offsetting the cost of the seg fee sweep. It would be a far cry from no new seg fees . Everyone has a bus pass, safe buses run pretty late. I can see how we could expand the safebus program – 80 is empty all the time. I really don’t think the way we should restore.funding is for student convenience. I have a hard time thinking about a special situation where you need it more than [6 times a semester]. They’re also willing to work with special circumstances. The students who have gone over the limit and really need it, there IS an option about that. Only a few have inquired about this.

When you look at a service that effects every student on campus, I guess I would argue that an increase of $4 for every student on campus is too much, especially when the students who need the service will not get turned down. Its simply irresponsible to pay that amount for situations where they don’t want to walk home. I’ve certainly had friends like that. That’s the sort of behavior we don’t want to encourage. It is a balance between how much were spending and while the numbers themselves aren’t that much…yeah, but that’s only one tiny portion of our budget. If we applied that every safe program, it would go up considerably.

Is there anything specific to SC that you think they’ve done well? Anything they’ve dropped the ball on?

One of the things, there’s been a lot of criticism about SC looking at their bylaws, I think there probably needs to be more discussion about what goes on in our committees, committees should be where we do the work and SC is where we should be discussing what we’re doing. A lot of times the chair reports are merely an afterthought and people just want to get through them. We absolutely need to look at the bylaws, because it makes us a more effective committee. We have recognized that ASM has structural weaknesses and they’re not going to go away by ignoring them. We have had a weakness in using SC as a vessel for the committee work and fostering it.

Hearing from the candidates #3: Cale Planmann

Cale is a law student and former legal adviser to CWC. He is running against Randall Melchert and Ajit Iyer. He is also a member of MPOWER.

> 1. What prompted you to run for Student Council in the first place?

I’ve been interested in ASM for a while and was going to run last year, but as I wasn’t a law student yet I could not run (which was frustrating).  I just like the idea of leaving the campus community a little better off than when I entered.
> 2. What do you know about Student Council? What is your impression of
> it?

Honestly I think that Student Council has been doing a pretty decent job so far.  Obviously there are huge visibility issues, but at some point I think you have to accept the fact that unless there is a crisis students are not going to get hugely invested in something as mundane or boring as student government.  Honestly, I consider Student Council’s relatively low profile so far a good thing because it means that the machine is (mostly) working.

> 3. What is something ASM has dropped the ball on in recent years? What
> is something it has succeeded at?

The entire SACGB process left a bad taste in my mouth.  I did some work with SLAC and the Working Class Student Union, and the process was broken.  The second time around it was broken in the WCSU’s favor so I kept my mouth shut, but there needs to be some major revisions.  On the same token, the entire Campus Women’s Center appeal process demonstrated how broken the ASM bylaws are.  I feel that if the bylaws were properly written 1) the entire situation could have been solved by mistakes being admitted and revised numbers being accepted and 2) there would not have been enough procedural loopholes and inconsistencies in the bylaw to let a troublemaker keep the process alive.

Additionally, I have some major problems with the Student Judiciary and especially the election commission.  I feel that they have been vastly overstepping their bounds recently (changing rules mid election, reapportioning seats without Student Council consent, etc) and I think that proper Student Council action is needed to reign them in.

As for good things, I do think ASM is moving in the right direction with regards to accessibility.  Additionally I think that the SSFC has been doing a pretty good job keeping fees low (although I think they should have more power to audit the numbers groups submit to them).
> 4. Do you belong to any student organizations on campus?

I am affiliated with Law Students for Reproductive Justice and the National Lawyers Guild.  I have done some work with the Campus Women’s Center, SLAC, and the WCSU but I do not consider myself a member.
> 5. If you had one thing to pass through SC or work on in an ASM committee,
> what would it be?

Comprehensive rewrite of the bylaws.  Probably either pertaining to SJ or SACGB.
> 6. What can SC do about tuition and fees at UW?

For tuition I’m pretty sure all we can do is beg and plead (although that has worked to some degree in the past).  As to fees, I would like the SSFC to continue closely monitoring GSSF groups, but I would like to find some way to prevent the administration from funding/creating faux grass roots movements to pass referendum a la Union South/Varsity Union/Whatever & NatUP.  Frankly, stopping this sort of thing from happening in the future is probably the most important issue any of us are going to face in our terms.
> 7. If you could be appointed to any ASM committee, which would it be and
> why?

Nominations – I would like the next wave of SJ justices to actually know what the standards of review they’re using mean.

> 8. How familiar are you with Robert’s Rules of Order?

Not that familiar.  What I do know I’m not a fan of.
> 9. Are there any causes you feel ASM should be championing?

Campus Safety.  I want University Health Services to be better utilized/fully affordable and I want the 80-82, saferide and safewalk to be available, advertised and convenient.  I don’t want any student to be victimized because they felt they had to save their saferides for an emergency.  This will probably be pricey, but if we have to make tradeoffs with GSSF funding/Student Council stipends, so be it.

> 10. What are your other commitments for the next academic year?

Law School is a full time job.

Hearing from the candidates #2: Beth Huang

Beth is a member of MPOWER and SLAC. While met with a bunch of MPOWER candidates today, I’ll have to update those early tomorrow. Here’s her responses.

1. What prompted you to run for Student Council in the first place?

I am running for Student Council because I think that it can be more effective in championing students’ issues. To me, Student Council is the place where students gather to discuss and take action on their issues. I decided to run for Student Council to listen to my peers and bring their concerns to a place where they will be heard.

2. What do you know about Student Council? What is your impression of it?

I attended my first Student Council meeting last semester (my first semester on campus). The high level of bureaucracy left the strongest impression on me. I remember that it took representatives one minute to decide whether or not to take a five minute break. In a recent Student Council meeting, representatives spent the entire meeting debating an increase in Student Council stipends. I feel that this time could be put to better use by discussing issues that affect the majority of the student body. Again, I believe that Student Council can be more efficient and more effective in representing students and fighting for their rights to affordability and safety.

3. What is something ASM has dropped the ball on in recent years? What is something it has succeeded at?

ASM has not been as transparent as it should be, especially since it wields an enormous amount of power. ASM’s more public campaigns, like textbook affordability, have been successful. The textbook swap is really great for promoting affordability of higher education.

4. Do you belong to any student organizations on campus?

I am a proud member of the Student Labor Action Coalition, College Democrats of Madison, and WUD Society and Politics. To me, all of these organizations fit into the same narrative of engaging students in fighting for students’ rights, whether that means rallying for student-worker solidarity, campaigning for politicians who will not cut funding for higher education, or gathering students together to talk about issues on campus and beyond.

5. If you had one thing to pass through SC or work on in an ASM committee, what would it be?

If elected, I would increase the number of SAFE Ride Cabs students receive from six rides per semester back to four rides per month. ASM should champion campus safety.

6. What can SC do about tuition and fees at UW?

SC has power in the allocation of segregated fees. Students pay over $500 in segregated fees every semester, and it is one of our primary responsibilities to allocate this money to promote student services. In addition, ASM is a highly regarded institution, and we have the power and duty to lobby our legislators at the Capitol to resist cuts in higher education.

7. If you could be appointed to any ASM committee, which would it be and why?

If elected, I would like to be appointed to the Academic Affairs committee because the primary reason why we attend this university is to be educated, so I would like to focus on academic issues like textbook costs and class offerings. However, I would like to be on the Legislative Affairs committee because the affordability of higher education is an extremely important issue to me, and I see lobbying our legislators to fund higher education at current levels a primary responsibility of ASM. I’m divided right now.

8. How familiar are you with Robert’s Rules of Order?

I have had some experience with Robert’s Rules in high school in the Badger Girls State Assembly.

9. Are there any causes you feel ASM should be championing?

I don’t know how many times I have heard my peers talk about the pain they feel when we pay our tuition bills or when we hear the cashier at the University Book Store say that our total is over $300 or $400. Affordability is issue #1 for me.

10. What are your other commitments for the next academic year?

My course load for next year will be, as usual, rather heavy. Also, midterm elections are during the fall semester, and I intend to campaign at full speed for the candidates who I believe will be most supportive of students and education. If elected, however, Student Council and my academics will be my two chief commitments.

—

I asked a few follow-up questions:

Could you expand on the idea of how ASM hasn’t been transparent?

I guess I have a better idea of the opposite of transparency. Decreasing the number of SAFE Ride Cabs should be something that is discussed before decision time and at the time of making the decision. In my opinion, it should not be something that is simply announced.

But how would SC have power over Seg Fees? Isn’t that an SSFC decision mostly?

Sorry about the thing about SC and segregated fees. Sometimes idealism just sweeps over me, and I get a little carried away.

How do you expand the textbook swap?

The textbook swap should be aggressively promoted. It should be promoted in dorms, since many freshmen who live in dorms also sit in large lecture halls and have to buy very commonly used textbooks. Correct me if I am wrong, but I live in Chadbourne, and I did not see anything in my dorm about the textbook swap. The dorms are key to the expansion of the textbook swap.

Hearing from the candidates: #1 – Matt Beemsterboer

Well, I was going to put a lot more effort into hearing from the candidates, but my research took precedence. So today I sent out an e-mail to a rash of candidates. I’ll post what I get in response to my questions. I’m also trying to set up a meeting with most of the MPOWER candidates tomorrow, so I’ll post the information I get after that.

So here are the (very basic) questions I asked:

1. What prompted you to run for Student Council in the first place?

2. What do you know about Student Council? What is your impression of it?

3. What is something ASM has dropped the ball on in recent years? What is something it has succeeded at?

4. Do you belong to any student organizations on campus?

5. If you had one thing to pass through SC or work on in an ASM committee, what would it be?

6. What can SC do about tuition and fees at UW?

7. If you could be appointed to any ASM committee, which would it be and why?

8. How familiar are you with Robert’s Rules of Order?

9. Are there any causes you feel ASM should be championing?

10. What are your other commitments for the next academic year?

1) I wanted to run for student council last year so that I could have an active voice in the decisions that ASM would have.  In particular, I wanted to be able to represent the finance committee in decisions that would pertain to its workings.  I also recognized that with no student running to be the b-school rep that the school’s voice would effectively be muted.  Finally, I knew that, if I were to be elected to the FC chair position that I would be at every student council meeting, so I wanted to be able to have a vote and voice in all that SC does.

2) Since I am currently on student council, I know it fairly well.  In all, I’d say that SC’s primary function is to guide ASM through the year.  It doesn’t necessarily accomplish anything big, that work is typically the committees, but it functions as a body to make sure the rest of the organization is running smoothly.  SC isn’t perfect by any means, but it does a decent job at doing what it must.

3) ASM has probably dropped the ball on a number of things, but I think the naming of the union is something that ASM could have had a greater impact on.  The student voice that was so desperately pushed for on the committee to pick the possible names was squelched by the union council members who were there, effectively rendering the student voice useless.  This is an instance where ASM could have wielded the student voice very effectively; instead, however, the union got its way… again.  On the flip side, ASM continues to improve at helping student organizations.  ASM doles out a great deal of money, space and resources to students and student orgs on campus.  The methods that we do this are pretty efficient, not perfect, but they do a good job of getting the necessary tasks done.  This fact often gets lost in the ‘negative’ things that ASM does to student organizations, such as denying CWC for GSSF eligibility or revoking SLAC’s ASM funding this year.

4) I belong to the ‘Wisconsin Business Student Collaborative,’ the b-school student government and Phi Beta Lambda, a social business fraternity.  Other than those, my only other org is ASM.

5) I want to decrease the subjectivity of the ASM Finance Committee grant process.  The current process is flawed in that the committee has no way of justifying its decision making.  Committee members can vote in any way they want for each grant, and that allows members to subconsciously, or intentionally, make decisions that are non-viewpoint neutral.

6) To be frank, almost nothing.  The only real control that ASM SC has is in keeping our seg fee levy in check.  When it comes to tuition, SC can lobby the regents and legislature to push for lower tuition or greater state funding of higher education, but when it comes down to it we really have no authority over these boards.  Instead, I think SC is better served in trying to ensure that students get the best value from what they pay for tuition.  Lower tuition isn’t really possible without cutting from the product that the university provides; thus, ASM should constantly monitor the product that is being put on the table through shared governance and representing the student voice to ensure that students are getting the most value for their money.

7) Finance committee.  None of the other committees interest me all that much, and I enjoy helping student orgs through the FC.

8) Familiar enough to know that the heck is going on in SC meetings.

9) How awesome our university is.  That isn’t satirical either.  Many students don’t realize the true value of the education we get here.  We are a huge research university, we have an athletics program that is continually improving, and we have one of the more powerful student voices in the country when it comes to student government.  All of that at a price that is pretty damn fair compared to other schools.  We aren’t MATC cheap, we aren’t Harvard academically, and we aren’t ‘insert amazing athletics school here’ at sports, but we do a great job at the three when you look at the whole picture.  I only wish more students saw it that way.

10) At the moment, I have no real other solid commitments.  I plan on staying involved with the WBSC in the business school, and will likely run for an officer position again.  With only 12 credits per semester next year, however, I am more than able to manage that commitment in addition to ASM.

NatUp Debate!

Here we go!

7:03- Ben Beduhn is moderating. Let’s do this.

By the way, it appears that the opposition is just TAA. Not a shock as grad students are usually just stuck with seg fees, given PA, TA and RA positions with tuition remission.

7:05 – Oh, and I forgot to mention — all the NatUP members are on up front, wearing their NatUP shirts. A student next to me noted, they’re looking very “Aryan.” Silly man.

7:06 – Tina Trevino-Murphy asked Beduhn why he was chosen, as if he’s biased.

7:07 – NatUP opening statement: Endorsing a yes vote (duh) for a project to revamp the nat, to open in 2014. Seg fees will kick in 2013. Demand for rec facilities has increased by 50 percent since 2000. They’re turning down requests for space and this shows there is a need for more space. Focus groups with UW students have voiced their problems with rec sports, here’s their chance to make their voice. Research conducted recently says that rec sports is a major factor in recruitment and retention for students.

7:10 – Response: We’re not a new Nat, we’re against a rise in segregated fees. Because the 2013 seg fee kick in is going to happen, don’t pay attention to that grace period. It’s a 10 percent raise. It’s over 1000 dollars and given the rise in tuition as well, this is really tough on people. I personally had to put everything on food stamps and credit cards. It’s rough for grad students. This is something that administration is trying to get in and its not going to happen this time. They’re raising tuition through a backdoor method. It’s just easier. This campaign is astroturf. It’s got corporate support. NatUP is a group of students — Rec Sports announces this at the end of fitness classes, has a petition when you come into the Rec Sports web page, its on all the shirts. I urge everyone to vote no on this to stop the slippery slope of construction projects and give a direction to how these things are supposed to be run.

Question 1 to NatUp: How do you solve the shortages in space?

No Seg Fees – this isn’t about how are we going to save particular problems that rec sports faces — we’re a time of incomparable fiscal crises. Where are the priorities in the university? What are we going to be as a university community – are we going to serve academics? LEt’s keep the focus on academics and access to education. When we face these priorities, these people are going to come down on the side of academics.

NatUp – First off, they had the information when they filled out the petition, the ballot language was there. To argue that you think rec sports doesn’t have any effect on academics is shortsighted.

The 50 percent space denial is going to be solved by the Nat – the new proposal includes a new turf field for student club sports to continue practicing and competing in the winter, will help free up rec sports. New facilities will improve the access issues the SERF and Nat are facing.

7:19 - Faculties face furloughs and classes face cuts. Are we justified in raising seg fees?

Nat UP – First off, don’t bring up furloughs — that’s the state issue, address the legislature, it’s mandated for budgetary reasons, we shouldn’t be addressing that here. Also, let’s not talk about class sizes, that has no effect on NatUP. This is a democratic vote and academic classes. State will provide proportional funding.

No Seg Fees – We’re already under 20 percent in terms of GPR – and the legislature keeps cutting because they know we can always foot the bill in tuition and fees. This vote will actually tell the Legislature that we’re not going to stand for this.

We are here to discuss state budget cuts. We get money from the wallet and we either buy a burrito or a ring. (Is this guy stoned?) Who here has seen the Big Lebowski? It’s like Lenin said, you follow the money (Stoner confirmed.) I’ll tell you how much a website costs! 26 dollars! Money, process.

Lot of ins and a lot of outs. (Wow. Is this debate going to start quoting Fargo next? You betcha. Heck ya.)

7:25- Students before us have committed to the UHS facility, Union and other buildings. Is there a responsibility to take building this projects?

No Seg Fees: Yeah, but it’s ridiculous. I’m all for a new building, but I just don’t think this should be put on students. You should have come to students with private donors already in tow!

Also, this is one more referendum in a line that goes back into the past. And there’s more in the future as a result of the Campus Master Plan (Yeah. Look out for the West Campus Union! For real.)

NatUP: What is unique about the Rec Sports facilities, Union, etc, is that they were updated by student mandates. It’s the responsibility of the students to decide about this. This funding criteria is consistent with student service funding – 5.2 million will contributed by rec sports and the state. (About 3 mil for academics pitched in by the state) We’ve been working to overcome inaccurate misinformation.

7:30 – Will these increase in seg fees prevent other students from pursuing an education.

NatUp – No. It’ll be 21k for instate and 38k for out of state in a few years. These are all necessary costs. An extra 100 bucks isn’t going to really mean anything more. This is a very minor cost when you consider the impact on student life. 80 percent of campus used the rec sports facilities. 10,000s of student lives will be enriched by rec sports. And 100 dollars isn’t going to keep a student from going here.

No New Seg Fees – The amount to attend here depends on what students themselves can justify spending. It goes pretty far for students. Every buck counts for students who are scrimping and saving. And you’re telling me that I have to make students after me pay 108 dollars because I wanted a new facilitiy? It’s not right.

Tuition has been going up year after year for out of states and in states. They come here because of the excellent reputation, facilities, etc. but this is going to cause seg fees to go out for 100 years for the next 30 years. He told people this is going up 100 dollars per year. Compounded. That’s wrong. Sorry. You should stop talking.

There’s a lot going on here, but it’s essentially the same thing — tuition is high, private donors can chip in. Etc.

There are other buildings that are literally having ceilings caving in. And considering that they told the Legislature last year that they didn’t want a new nursing facility because they were awash in capital building project money. Why can’t they contribute more?

Nat Up - I’d like to draw a distinction. I very much here your concerns about tuition, but that’s nothing we can do anything about. if we are concerned about tuition rates, vote for a different governor come 2010. If you’re concerned about the slippery slope, I understand, but this is about student services facilities. Not academic buildings. Can’t use this for Vilas. (But J-Schoolers need HELP!) Also have a bunch of studies that shows the NatUP project is needed. We can’t meet the need of our students without expanding. The study of 2004 showed we’re tens of thousands of square feet short of space. This project would currently cost 54 dollars a semester. If we do this in five years –

Cut off by moderator.

7:41 – Should only a few students decide the NatUP project.

NatUP - We want to see a good turnout in the election (Yeah, because you need 15 percent turnout for this vote to mean a damn.) We’ve held lots of information sessions, sent LTEs to the campus papers, had a facebook page, etc. Every single one of our activities has tried to increase turnout. Should we throw out the D5 results because no one turned out? (Now that you say it…) The votes cast will be the direct voices of the students.

No New Seg Fee – They said the initial proposition for this was rec sports approached SSFC. Shouldn’t it be the other way around (Why? When has it ever been that way?) Imagine the Republicans in the health care debate. The just vote no, no information. Democracy is about education and deliberation, not just informing them about a vote that has already been determined. (OK, I was kidding about him being stoned, but seriously. He’s not doing well at this.) We have a master plan that is prefigured. There are certain things that administration and rec sports want to do, and they know this is going to happen. The input of the whole campus needs this. The widest participation is needed.

Real democracy is more than just casting a vote on this.

7:49 – Missed the question (thanks, Clegg!)- but the answer: Private donors need to be found, but that’s NatUP’s responsibility. They have to find the revenue and then come forward. This is their burden first, not students. They need to think about how to deal with this when students say no.

NatUP – If students decide this is not a good value for them, we’ll live with that. No backroom deals. One way or another, this project will get done. If you see more referenda coming down, it’s because students care about this! The experiences are only going to get worse. You can say its the admin pushing this, but since 2002, it’s been students asking when they’re going to get new facilities. There is a very good value for this project now.

7:53 – NatUP – If this gets voted down, I know a good deal of people will fight for this. They’ll do what they have to, they’ll do what they have to do to get by. I don’t know what students will do to get by. They’ll keep fighting for a new facility.

No New Seg Fees – They’re a bit confused, question reformed, “What would the natatorium do if this project is voted down?”

Um…that Natatorium…its a building. It doesn’t think.

“I’d pay 54.19 a semester to see a sentient building!”

If the referendum is voted down, I hope that the administration finds way that are not through students to go ahead and fund a project for a renovated Natatorium. I would hope NatUP wouldn’t do anything fishy. And they promised they wouldn’t. So I’m not implicating them at all. That sounded a lot worse than I thought.

By the way – construction underruns are not something to bank on, because that’s a scare tactic. If we’re going to have a full fledged discussion about our priorities, we need to agree this is going to happen, just discuss where it’s going to come from.

7:57 – Are there more bodies on campus that could more appropriately contribute to this program?

No New Seg Fees- We don’t know who exactly wanted to start this project.

I’m not sure if there’s one body that has to fund these renovations, but there is a body that has the funds to pay for the elements of the NatUp campaign. I’ve heard they come from the Rec Sports gift funds, etc. They’ve paid a lot for these elements. This gift funds may not be able to pay for the whole renovations, but it’s clear they’re able to pay for the campaign (Yeah. I think they chipped in a little over 20K? Not a big amount.)

I don’t know where 54 million is going to come from, but it’s pretty safe to say that it’s not our responsibility to come up with that. Looking back at history, this is not the way facilities are funded on this campus. That is, it wasn’t until the Union broke that precedent.

I don’t know where the money is coming from, but it can come from other places.

NatUP - private donors have been sought out for this project. Currently, none have been found. The notion that a private donor would chip in for this? Find me one! (Person in the row in front just chimed in “Virginia Tech. Michael Vick.” Anyone know if that’s true? Doesn’t seem like it. Donated 10,000 to Tech shooting victims, but I can’t see him listed in Rec Sports donors. )

It certainly didn’t get dreamt up by the Athletic Board. But to say you’re going to have 60 million on hand somewhere is absurd! It’s the opinion of these guys that they don’t want to pay for it, but there are people who do.

Also, it should be noted that the NatUP campaign fliers and all materials are informational, they’re not telling people how to vote.

Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. You don’t run a campaign for the fun of information. It’s not an objective campaign.

8:06 – Active students with access to facilities has benefits on mental health, metabolism, etc. Really benefits your brain. It’s a national study.

No New Seg Fees – This isn’t about someone arguing we shouldn’t have a Natatorium. This is about fees and priorities. The example of the Engineering department tuition differential is there to fund academic programs and wanting an investment in education.

8:10 - Closing statements

No New Seg Fees  - You think the Natatorium looks bad now, think about how the SERF will look when it’s run down by constant student use while the Nat is being renovated.

It’s a referendum on whether we want a public institution in name remain a public institution in deed. The Nat is going to be renovated, yes, but we can’t do this at a time when tuition is skyrocketing. Our university needs to make tough choices in the budget. Some of the tough choices can include more money for grad assistants and faculty. But students don’t have a tough choice. They know they want access.

Got a note from someone from UW-Oshkosh, a graduate there, and they made it clear they wanted students to vote with us, because they were tired of these astroturf campaigns ramming projects down students throats. It’s about real student democracy.

NatUP – I just want to point out – they’ve just answered that they want a new Nat, but they don’t want to pay for it. That’s not a good enough answer. There are people who are willing to pay seg fees now. (Yeah. Well then let them do it. Your 1 million dollar subsidy is a nice campaign tactic.)

Natatorium sees tens of thousands of unique visitors every year, and thousands of them signed the petition.

This is about one question: Is 54.19 a good value for a renovated Natatorium? Yes. And most students understand this.

NOTICE: NatUp Debate tonight at 6:45 at Humanities 2111

I’ll be live blogging a point-counterpoint debate between the folks at Rec Sports/NatUp and whatever oppositional speakers the No New Seg Fees group is going to bring out. This is an incredibly important discussion to be had and I hope a good deal of people will be willing to sit down and listen to both sides. I’ll be there.

A brief response to Max Love

As Max Love, freshman and MPOWER organizer decided to take the editorial board to task for our piece today, I felt it only fair to address his concerns.

“You all fail to see the point. MPOWER is an ideology shift. You all know there are way more issues MPOWER stands for than this;”

Yes, like Israeli divestment?

Actually, I don’t know that. Because these were the things you chose to make your priorities. And considering the fact that MPOWER will be bogged down in the morass that is ASM bylaws and parli pro next year regardless of what the bylaw committee ends up doing, the platform has to be a succint list of what you want to accomplish. So if you have more Max, please, by all means, provide it.

“Ideologies Accountability, Transparent, Equitable Treatment to Student Organizations, Segregated Fees for Student Services, Steadfast with Administration, and Active Student Interest. Find those all on the website empowerstudents.org (there’s explanations so instead of someone just complaining that everyone always says they will be accountable and transparent one would see how MPOWER plans to accomplish that).”

OK. Let’s take a look at accountability:

Student leaders in ASM should be available to constituents and actively outreach to students, they should be acting on issues rather than devoting the majority of their time to internal reform that conflicts with student interest, and should not be paid excessive amounts of money. While MPOWER intends to make concrete policy changes, our priorities are campaigns around student issues, working with campus groups to provide them with the resources they need to be effective, and developing new leaders through the ASM internship program, despite the current leadership having cut one of the staff positions responsible for running the program.

So is that to indicate you’re not going to spend the majority of your time on internal reform? What about the major changes to student funding criteria? Or changes to chair stipends? Or reforming the ASM internship program? Or changing the way ASM operates its budgetary process and increasing transparency through an assumed reform of the press office?

Max, you can’t chastise the current council for focusing too much time on internal reform when most of what you propose would require just as much. I agree that we shouldn’ t be having Student Council meetings that run until midnight on a single issue or spending time debating whether or not SJ or SC has authority in a certain issue. But that’s more a case of preparedness and knowledge of each SC member. You know the rules and details, many of them don’t. School them all quickly, by all means, but don’t contradict yourself by chastising inward facing legislation when what you’re calling for would do much of the same.

“Affordability Tuition, Student Aid Reform (already passed, so we can’t bring that to student awareness, remember, I have yet to see a platform from another candidate other than some bullet points on a Facebook account)”

Max, what does that even mean? Yes, it’s been passed, which means its not an issue for ASM to even discuss. What’s the point? “The distracted, petty ASM of last session helped fight for this?”

Textbooks (Jonah Zinn current Academic Affairs chair brings much to the table)

Yes, if he expands the textbook swap. This is a great tool and even though he didn’t start it, he’s promoted it a lot more than in the past, but it’s still serving only 1 percent of campus. It can be expanded and should. Just because Zinn wants to school professors on what their obligations are to students doesn’t mean that the swap can’t be a powerful tool as well.

and theDREAM Act (not mentioned in the article). Remember; this is a NON-EXHAUSTIVE list. non-exhaustive.

I don’t mind if its not exhaustive, but the point of comparing you and faces was that they had a direction they wanted to go in. You can’t simply run on a platform saying “We will make this college more affordable” because it doesn’t actually set out a course of action to make it happen. How are you going to affect tuition? How do you offset it? Do you have a safeguard being worked out to stop more capital building projects from using seg fees?  These are the things voters want to know: Not that you support these things. They do too. So do most of the students on ASM right now.

SAFEcab, Accessible and Inclusive Gender Spaces, Inclusive Excellence (also not mentioned; MPOWER will hold the UW-System accountable to their plan for inclusiveness), discrimination and hate crimes on campus, and housing and the MSC Satellite defense (both not mentioned in your “article”).

Well, that’s good to know you’ll hold UW accountable for Inclusive Excellence, but how about, instead, figuring out what the hell it’s going to actually do? Plan 2008 could be held accountable because it had identifiable goals and methods of reaching it. Inclusive Excellence has an ideology shift with no actionable items. If you were holding them accountable, you’d explain what it is or why its a good idea or where its misguided. That isn’t happening here and I’ve yet to hear anyone discuss how frustrated they are with it. And I know part of you is Max, so just come out and make it clear! That’s what I want to hear!

Other Issues VOTE 2010 (missed it), Tenant Rights, Labor Issues, and Shared Gov. Once again folks, a non-exhaustive list.

Stop saying its non-exhaustive. Start coming up with identifiable goals that you want to reach by next year and, being optimistic, the year after that. Lay out a plan. Lay out a strategy. Don’t throw out ideas and then rationalize it as, “Well, not everything is here in this platform!” Well, then where are all these important agenda items and specifics that you’ve left out? Why aren’t you telling people what they are?

Student Fees for Student Services Student Organizations (so yes, if there is a fundamental service to campus there should be a way to provide it, if that means making some structural changes, there may have to be reform), NatUP, and the Auxiliary Raid (didn’t mention the last two either; by the way, the numbers confirm that more than $1,000,000 in student segregated fees were “swept” in the raid).

First off, let’s get something real straight here: The original number that was reported to me back in July was $981,299 which would come from segregated fee funded units. That included ASM, Rec Sports and the Union. Now, I know that ASM had 180K taken and the Union claimed it lost about $400,000 from that. Now well both units claimed to have recovered the funds as a result of their reserves, I understand your point: It could be illegal and is, at the very least, an affront to students.  That being said, we did mention it:

And even though suing the university to recover ASM monies seized during the process of balancing the budget might not be the best idea, seeking some legal advice on the matter couldn’t hurt.

So we sided with you on that one, Max. And I side with you on the segregated fees halt.

Funny; I find it interesting that Jason Smathers posted about “A New Slate, Comprehensive Platform” and then this is written, almost contradicting his initial ideas (http://asmwatch.wordpress.com/).

Yeah. And the post was initially labeled “A New Slate, Vague Platform,” which I placed there because I only saw a mission statement and initially thought that was it. So in comparison, yes, the platform was much more comprehensive than the general outline of principles you had. But I’m glad you got a laugh out of it, for whatever reason.

The fact of the matter is that it will remain so because MPOWER is focused on getting student input on things that need to happen to make the campus a better place. Can you honestly say that is our model of government now?

Yes, I can. It’s misguided in places, but having been here for the last  6 years, I can tell you that it’s a hell of a lot closer than it was. This is evidenced by the fact that half the things in that platform are already being worked on. Tenant Resources? Bolstering Shared Gov? A better way to fund student services? Accountability? Transparency?

They’re all being put in place and improved. Erik passed his Tenant Resources contract, ASM got four deputies to aid Shared Gov, Manes’ committee at least has an idea set up for a Campus Services Fund, we have a fully functioning Press Office for once and you, me, Brandon Williams, Erik Paulson, Kurt Gosselin and Adam Johnson all have blogs.

My point, I suppose, is that the impediments you see to progress are much smaller hurdles than you think.

I saw how upset and bewildered you were at the discussion over chair stipends because you vehemently disagreed with the way they were being calculated. It didn’t really seem like there was going to be an agreement there.

Then I come to read in our paper today that you and Adam Johnson came to a compromise that was passed unanimously. And the chair reports that need to be filed will be online. And you guys didn’t even make it to 9 p.m.

This is proof that when it wants to, Student Council can actually compromise on items and move forward. Unless tonight was a delusion. You tell me.

MPOWER: Making FACES look like bold action.

When MPOWER stood at the top of Bascom and declared their intent to change the ways of Student Council and Student Services Finance Committee, there was a certain symbolism there, one that perhaps was lost on the candidates as well. MPOWER stood up next to good ol’ Abe Lincoln, our perpetual reminder of the gift of land grant universities, and made their case for why they should be the stewards of our student government. But given their leftist alignment and similarities to last year’s FACES slate, the scene was a little different.

Faces, seen here on the steps of the Union

FACES stood around like a bunch of mooks. They’re casually standing on the steps of the Union, a hub for meetings and activity. Sure, it’s organized, but somewhat loose and going with the mood of the grassroots message.

MPOWER announces their candidacy at Bascom

MPOWER, on the other hand, gave a range of speeches, talked about how they’ll change ASM and announced this from the top of Bascom Hall. They didn’t look like a grassroots movement, they looked like a political body. And that’s perhaps what’s most interesting about the MPOWER movement when comparing it to FACES: the rhetoric of a “bottom-up” structure is gone. Maybe its because this is about getting down to business rather than making everyone feel like they’re members of ASM (which they are, but rarely do they directly participate), but the omission is obvious. From the FACES platform:

FACES sees that there is a huge problem in student power in that students do not feel as if they can make a difference in their community. We want to make sure that every student’s voice is heard and that every student feels like they can affect the outcome of issues on campus. FACES, which comprises much of the Vote No Coalition that overwhelmingly defeated the proposed ASM Constitution, understands the power and the process of grassroots organizing. • We will address and tackle issues that affect the lives of students and that provoke student concerns thereby empowering them to take initiative. • FACES will make the activities of ASM very public so that as many students as possible are aware that these problems are being addressed. • Since student groups are a key component in grassroots organizing on campus FACES will reach out to as many groups as possible in order to create as wide of a coalition as possible, gaining support for our initiatives. This will involve making sure that student groups receive adequate funding. Also, we will use the grassroots committees to their fullest potential by utilizing them to unite students and conduct campaigns.

Now, while the MPOWER platform does make it clear that they want inclusive representation, everything is about the “student leaders” on ASM and the power it has to combat the administration and injustices. Frankly, I’m glad they embraced the direct influence ASM can have rather than thinking a dissemination of voices will solve anything.

So, with that being said, I’m appalled that, while the succeeded where FACES failed (in admitting the power of a unified Council), they’ve failed where FACES succeeded: in having identifiable and relevant goals to the student body.

Now, I know what you’re saying: But Smathers, FACES didn’t have any good ideas either! Wrong: They didn’t have any new ideas. But while you could certainly disagree with them along political or pragmatic lines, the few points they had were outlined directly and far more relevantly than MPOWER has.

Case #1: Affordability FACES: “We will lobby the university and our legislators directly… propose a shared governance committee to monitor university spending and make sure that unnecessary costs are not passed onto students and working families … make sure that any tuition increases correspond with dollar for dollar increases in financial aid and that the financial aid process is fair. ”

Now you can say that they’re living in a dream world and that if Spencer Black couldn’t make the last point happen in the last few years, it’s just not in the cards during a massive budget crisis. But at the very least, they know what they want.

MPOWER: “We believe the best financial aid is low tuition and fees…” They then go on to say that their approach to affordability is to ask UW to lower tuition, past student loan reform, lower textbook costs and pass the federal DREAM act. NEWSFLASH: Lower tuition is never going to happen. End of story. Even when Ben Manski and crew fought UW back in the late 9os, they only got tuition frozen…and then it nearly doubled within four years. As for the rest of it: student loan reform has already been passed (and the current ASM made their own push for it in DC), textbook reform and swaps are already underway and the federal DREAM act, while important to pass, has little effect on the overall goal of lower tuition and fees. For a student body, in the most pressing financial crisis of our time, to ask a university to lower tuition without first trying figure out a supplement (private or public) is delusional.

You want to increase public investment in education? Tackle the prison system budget for Wisconsin. Cause that’s the only place you can justifiably bleed for funds to swing toward UW.

Now, they also mention cutting the UW budget for wasteful spending. While I can certainly understand the attack on administrative salaries (even if it’s only 2% of UW’s budget), this line is absurd: “Students should not be paying for university apparel to be made in sweatshops.”

That’s a moral stance, not a budgetary one. They make it there because it’s cheap and people buy them, making money for UW. I don’t like the Nike situation either and if they don’t respond adequately in two days, I say cut them. But don’t act like you’ll save students money by cutting their contracts. It won’t shave a dollar off tuition.

Case #2: Campus Safety FACES:  We will start an education campaign about rape and sexual violence using campus groups. This education will be made public and readily available to all students. Also we will survey the existing programs and propose alterations if they do not adequately educate students. • While Blue Safety phones are available throughout Lakeshore, few can be found in Southeast or along main off-campus locations. We will push for more phones to be added to the campus and surrounding areas. • In order to make rapes and sexual assaults easily reportable we will propose to have the rape hotline in student wisc cards in order to ensure that no crimes go unreported and that they are dealt with adequately and promptly. • We will reform safe ride and safe walk to ensure that they can effectively handle the volume of requests they receive. The safe ride and safe walk systems are good ideas but have many current limitations such as only covering a limited area and having a relatively small staff to handle the number of students who may need assistance on weekends. FACES will try to increase the budgets of these systems or revamp their structures to ensure that students are protected and safe when they need to be.

The blue phones are useless and that was a legitimately worthless idea, but when we’re talking about safety on campus sexual assault is the BIGGEST underaddressed concern. Period. With the rampant drunkenness and freewheeling nature of the student body, we need to make sure that reporting of assault increases, people have ways out of dangerous situations and ensure that UW as an institution is a bigger player when it comes to the issue. (sanctions, reporting, counseling, etc.) FACES was sort of mixed in that category, but at least it had its mind in the right place.

MPOWER: First off, sexual assault isn’t even mentioned. For a slate that includes prominent members of CWC, I’m utterly baffled that this isn’t mentioned in a platform about campus safety. Maybe someone should have contacted PAVE first? Or maybe just this:

The red line that's way up? UW-Madison sexual assaults reported to UW employees

Nope, none of that here. But instead, we have a focus on bathrooms for transgender students (which, is fine by me, actually), support for “Inclusive Excellence”, the MSC satellite and work against hate crime. OK. But where’s the safety? Oh, here it is:

There are students on campus who never use SAFE ride cabs, but feel safer because they know that service is available. Meanwhile, there are other students who have come to rely on having SAFE rides whenever they need them — current leaders in ASM have deemed this a problem, and so they’ve dramatically decreased funding for the program, which now allows for only 6 rides per semester, as opposed to 4 rides per month. MPOWER will return funding to the SAFE ride cab program, because safety needs to be convenient.

So how many people were using the program more than 6 times a semester?

According to Romenesko, only about 150 students went over six rides last semester and he hopes cutting out these extra rides will be enough to keep the program running.

So, out of 42,000 people, 150 used it to its fullest extent. There’s certainly more to this than meets the eye, but the convenience assertion annoys me. Safety IS NOT convenient. That’s why we have designated drivers. That’s why we leave before it gets too dark. That’s why we have friends stay with us to make sure we get home on time. Safety is an essentially feature of college life and we all have to help each other in that regard. Safety does not mean convenience and convenience does not ensure safety. Unity and mindfulness does.

Case #3 Diversity (This one is as clear cut as it gets)

FACES: Increased recruitment of minority faculty and staff. Fighting for more minority scholarships and grants. Lobbying at Bascom and the Legislature for more diversity investment.

MPOWER: Supporting inclusive excellence, creating safe spaces.

One has activist spirit for concrete goals (though one may disagree with them), one simply supports what current ASM members such as Olikara are already doing, plus tacking on the gender-neutral bathrooms and opposing discrimination. Come on.

Now, there are some things that MPOWER focuses on that are reasonable, but unfortunately, they’re compromised in some significant way:

NatUp opposition: I’ve said that this is the one thing I support them doing. Problem is, by campaigning for a no-vote, they likely don’t help their cause. If they tell people to oppose the Natatorium renovation, they could still lose. If they keep mum about it, turnout stays below 15 percent and a yes vote means nothing. Hard to say what to do. This might have been a better platform for FACES, but they just ignored the problem it seems. Well, can’t say we didn’t warn you.

Tenant Services: Hey, you support tenant services. That’s great. That’s why Erik Paulson ensured we would have an opportunity to contract them out. And that’s what we’re doing. So, what was your plan, to give Student Tenant Union another go? Seems redundant and a waste of student’s money, don’t you think?

Segregated Fees: This will eventually be a whole new post, but let me state this succinctly: Funding of student services at UW-Madison may be in need of a change, but dicking around with General Student Service Funds criteria is asking for a lawsuit. There are constitutional safeguards to ensure we’re not funding student groups because we want to. By charting the path you are right now, you’re ensuring that someone will look at an MPOWER SSFC with the same suspiciousness that CWC looked at with this year’s SSFC. Except that they might have a point. And lastly, I take issue with this line:

The current criteria for allocating the General Student Services Fund value direct services, as defined by a small committee of representatives that are mostly un-elected.

I don’t want SSFC elected at all. It’s like electing judges. You say that you want a judge to uphold the law and they run on one of two things: Their credentials or their assertion that they’ll be “tough on crime.” One is reasonable and the other shows a corruption of justice. SSFC’s job is to interpret criteria fairly. In that sense, they’re like judges. I don’t want to elect SSFC representatives because they think this or that committee deserves funding. I want representatives who KNOW a group deserved funding because they met the standards of eligibility. That’s how it works.

There’s a lot more to discuss about MPOWER and ASM, but we’ll save this question for tomorrow: What in the MPOWER platform works, and what should be done to ensure whoever is on ASM MAKES it work?