There was a lot of brainstorming going on at Tuesday night’s Associated Students of NMU meeting.
There has been some talk of sending representatives to Lansing to speak with representatives. The trip is tentatively set for the last week in March.
“We’re planning on a little advocacy trip to Lansing to talk to some of our elected representatives and let them know what matters to NMU students,” said Travis Crowe, arts and sciences representative.
Although the details of what will be discussed with each representative are still up in the air, Crowe suggested finding out what it is that concerns the students of NMU and bringing those thoughts up while in the meetings.
However, getting that information was the main concern.
Crowe suggested trying to get a really low-key survey and send it out to a sample size of students just to ask people what are some of the issues that concern them about higher education.
Other representatives threw out ideas like holding a “Let’s Chat,” place information in the Marketplace and the Wildcat Den and even in the student announcements.
“We’re planning on talking about,first of all, things that matter to our students as far as higher education funding, support and state legislature for higher education and second of all things that matter specifically for schools in the U.P.,” Crowe said. “We all know that we have different challenges than schools across the state.”
The group of four or five representative from ASNMU plans to meet with the chairs and vice chairs of education committees such as house education, senate education, as well as meeting with local state representatives and the local state senator.
Republican Sen. Tom Casperson, Representatives Steven Lindberg, Paul Scott and Joan Bauer are just a few of the contacts ASNMU plans to meet with while in Lansing.
“We have eight contacts and I’ve heard back from five,” Crowe said. “But we already have one confirmed meeting.”
ANSMU’s goal is to represent the student body.
Any questions or comments can be submitted via ASNMU’s website, asnmu.nmu.edu.
