Students can work with Dining Services

In regards to Cafe Libri [and Lucy Hough’s column “Den Shouldn’t Have Changed” in the Sept. 2 issue of the North Wind], I would be bored too if I had to come in everyday and deal with the student body of NMU coming in complaining about school and how awful the food selection is. I’m sure if enough students were to e-mail Dining Services and express in a polite manner what types of food they would prefer to see on Cafe Libri’s menu they would be more than happy to reconsider what they serve to fit your needs. Cafe Libri is just as relaxing of a spot as the Den is to get a cup of coffee and do some homework. Granted it is small inside the book store, but if you e-mail Dining Services and tell them that they need more tables outside of the bookstore they will accommodate your needs.

If you feel alienated and you want Dining Services to change back to a la carte you need to make sure that your friends and other students stop breaking the rules by taking food out of the Den. It’s partially because of the students who break the rules that prices keep inflating. Though Dining Services was put on the campus of NMU to serve the students they as an establishment must put themselves first to keep funded in order to stay open.

Believe it or not, Dining Services is always more than willing to work out inconveniences when it comes to students dining on campus. If students and faculty don’t communicate with Dining Services about problems that they have with food or with the establishment itself, then nothing will change.

Frank McShane
NMU Alumnus May 2010
Milwaukee, Wisc.

Democrat candidates are right for Michigan

As we approach the November 2 mid-term election, it is time for students to begin thinking about the candidates on the ballot and the possible outcomes of electing them.

For example, in the 38th District State Senate race, Tom Casperson is running on a platform of “common sense” governance.

We somehow feel that NMU students differ with Tom in their senses, especially after he voted in 2005 to cut the operating budget of NMU by $14 million over five years after being pressured into compliance by big-shot downstate Republicans, the kind of people our peninsula doesn’t need making decisions for our generation.

Student-friendly Democrat Mike Lahti faces Casperson in November, and is counting on us to stand with him after he stood with us in 2009 when Republican leadership broke the Michigan Promise, leaving 96,000 Michigan students out on the street.

In the race to replace Bart Stupak in the first congressional district, there is a tough fight between Republican candidate Dan Benishek and Democrat Gary McDowell, also a member of the fight to keep Michigan’s Promise.

As students, we should all look closely at which candidates keep our interests in mind.  Gary McDowell has always been a strong supporter of education as well as the interests of the NMU community.  Gary has rejected the thought of drilling for oil in the Great Lakes, something that Benishek is in favor of, knowing that doing so has the potential of hurting our way of life as residents of the Great Lakes region. Gary also wants to maintain our current right as students to stay on our parents’ health care plan until we are 26, making it a little bit easier to afford college in the face of increasing tuition cost.  Benishek has not only opposes this right, but has called for degeneration back to the same health care policies that led to sky rocketing costs to students and their families during the Bush administration.

Although 2010 is not a presidential election, it is still an incredibly important one that will have extreme impact on our well-being not only as students, but as adult citizens.

Before you go to the polls on November 2nd, know what you’re voting for.

NMU College Democrats