A $1,425 budget was approved to travel downstate for the Lansing Blitz, a Student Association of Michigan rally for higher education, at the Monday, March 21 ASNMU meeting. This will cover student transportation, gas and a hotel stay for the bus driver. NMU will rent a bus with MTU from Superior Coaches in Hancock, which will cost $2,400, and MTU’s student government will pay $975. Though $1,425 will be paid by ASNMU initially, off-campus representative Alysa Diebolt said that amount will decrease to $0 within three weeks of the rally because of donations by various colleges, departments and individuals, effectually eliminating ASNMU’s costs.

As of Monday, 22 students had signed up to attend the rally; there were five open positions, and a professor chaperone was needed, Diebolt said.

President Courtney Russell said election packets are available until March 29 for students interested in running for ASNMU. In order to run, students must pick up a packet from the ASNMU office in the University Center. Those interested in running must meet with one of the elections committee members when they return their packets to the ASNMU office.

ASNMU discussed cleaning NMU’s campus at a previous meeting, and Russell said the Environmental Science Organization (ESO), a student organization on campus devoted to nature, already does a campus clean-up. Russell said ASNMU might partner with ESO to clean campus this spring.

Off-campus representative Benjamin Stanley said WiMAX adapters for MacBooks will be available in April, and the Teaching, Learning and Communication (TLC) initiative plans to survey students to gauge interest in switching to MacBooks in colleges other than Art and Design. Off-campus Dani Thoune reminded students that Windows is available on university MacBooks, so the switch would not necessarily mean learning a new operating system.