That being said, I strongly support Varsity Union as the name of the new building.  In my opinion, it is a name which reaches back into the history of the UW and is at once reflective and prescriptive.  The Wisconsin Union – and UW students – can thrive at the Varsity Union.

On Wisconsin,

Tyler

As of late, an issue that ASM leaders dealt with over the summer has resurfaced as a point of contention in the Student Council.  When Gov. Doyle proposed his state budget for FY10/11, it included a sweep of University System auxiliary enterprise accounts to help pay for Wisconsin Higher Education Grants.  Due largely to miscommunication, state budget office snafus, and horribly varying definitions, ASM’s reserve funds were swept as well.  The result: the student government has a $181,000 bill owed to the state.  For financial aid.

To see why this may be a problem, see University policy F50, specifically section 3(e).

Unsure of whether ASM’s accounts were really auxiliary accounts, whether segregated fees could be used in this way, or how ASM would be able to pay the state after University officials told us to empty our reserves to avoid a sweep such as this, ASM leaders worked last summer to try to resolve the issue.  To give the most cursory explanation possible, this resulted in a meeting with Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell back in November.  At this meeting, the VCA and ASM leaders agreed to work on a Memorandum of Understanding between themselves to protect allocable segregated fees in the future and ensure other safeguards against bad processes such as these.

ASM leadership – Brandon Williams, Tom Templeton, Kurt Gosselin, and I – are working actively on this MOU with university administration.  Despite some setbacks, I feel as if the process is going rather well.  Though I’ve been criticized for “not standing up for students” by not (currently) raising a stink about the $181k taken from ASM’s reserve funds for this fiscal year, I feel that these arguments are short-sighted (briefly, Housing and Transportation Services would take drastic hits if ASM’s funds were to be exempted this year, and for that to happen at this point in the fiscal year is both unlikely and bad for students living in and working for Housing this year, and UW faculty and staff, who are the main source of revenue for TransServices.)  What we have now is an opportunity to avoid this situation in the future.  These are the conversations we need to have.  The conversations of whether students should be refunded their $181,000 are worth having, but untimely.  If there’s any possibility that student money would be refunded, it’s likely not to come about by sitting in a room, wearing a suit.  Students would have to be antagonistic and apply serious SERIOUS pressure to the university for this to happen.  If we do that now, UW administration may very well walk away from the MOU discussions we’re having at this point.

They say not to put the cart before the horse, but the cart’s what’s in front of us, so let’s push that to our satisfaction.  We can mobilize the horse later.

For more information on this, specifically see Erik Paulson’s post.

Mostly old business, and essentially a meeting about updates.  We’ll be enfranchising many new freshmen on campus for our Fall elections and protecting students’ rights by requiring that all referenda ask at most one question.

Please contact me at jungertyler@gmail.com if you have any questions.

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First, ASM will be hosting its first-ever Move Out Night on the night of Friday, August 14^th. The Student Activity Center will be open for students to spend the night while they’re between leases; student groups will be there, refreshments will be provided, and gobs of fun will be had by all, I think. For more information, see the Facebook event.

Second, the Student Council will be meeting on August 22^nd at noon to discuss some important issues. We’ll be voting on a motion to have the Legislative Affairs committee work on financial aid reform, which the US Congress will be taking up after the health care debate. We’ll also be looking at some changes to ASM bylaws, including overhauling the Student Judiciary bylaws.

Third, both the Coordinating Council and the SSFC are planning their training retreats, at which ASM leaders will work to better master the ins and outs of the organization. The Coordinating Council retreat is scheduled for August 22^nd, and the SSFC retreat will be held August 29^th and 30^th.

Finally, I’d like to introduce everyone to a new section on my blog. As the head of a student government, I’m constantly receiving emails from companies looking to offer their services to students. This presents a problem. We obviously can’t partner with all these companies and do ground work for them, but some of the deals that they offer could be valuable to students. In navigating this issue, I’ve decided to post links to these deals here, so that students can see the products and services available to them. Legal bit: by posting this link, neither ASM nor myself is offering its support or endorsement, real or otherwise, to these companies. The information provided is strictly for the purpose of student education.

Links to deals offered by AT&T can be found here and here.

General Discussion:

Move Out Night

Rep. Ziebell addressed the Student Council, describing to them the preparations that have been taken in anticipation of ASM’s Move Out Night event. This event is to be held in the Student Activity Center from August 14^th through August 15^th. She asked council members to serve as volunteers during this event,

Reserve Fund Sweep

Chair Junger addressed the Student Council, debriefing them on the actions taken in response to the state’s taking of money from the reserve funds of ASM, UHS, University Housing, the Union, and other campus auxiliary units.

BUCCE Campaign:

Representative Manes addressed the Student Council, outlining his proposal for a relevancy campaign entitled “BUCCE: Building our Campus and Community Environment.” The campaign would focus on providing material benefits to the general membership of ASM; the nature of these benefits would be determined based on survey results. The council referred this campaign to the External Affairs committee, which was directed to take up the ideas it thought were feasible and refer the rest back to the Council.

Legislation Passed:

Appointments to the Nominations Board

Chair Junger put forward the legislation. Representatives Flores and Bartz and Vice Chair Templeton were appointed to the Nominations Board

ASM Supports the High Density Shelving Facility Project for the 2011-2013 Biennium

Representative Paulson put forward the legislation. ASM put forward its support for the campus libraries to build a building for high density storage of books.

ASM Takes a Stand on the Federal Student Loan Program

Representative Paulson put forward the legislation. ASM directed the Legislative Affairs committee to investigate the changes which will occur with the passage of legislation involving federally-subsidized student loans. The Legislative Affairs committee will report back to the Student Council at the August meeting.

The Barney Bill

Secretary Gosselin put forward the legislation. The Student Council rescinded 16-0612-03, as the time for that legislation to be effective has passed.

UW-Madison Research Assistant Collective Bargaining Unit Information Act

Representative Ingram put forward the legislation. In the new state budget, University of Wisconsin Research Assistants will be allowed to form collective bargaining units. The legislation proposed ASM being a clearinghouse for unbiased information regarding these units’ creation. It also authorized the Graduate Student Caucus to spend small amounts of money on distributing this information. The council passed this legislation.

Next meeting: Saturday, August 22, 2009; 12:00 PM (noon); Hearing Room, Student Activity Center, 333 East Campus Mall