Former MSA Presidents 4 Idiocy
Former MSA president Matt Nolan finds the Students 4 Michigan platform (discussed here on Arbor Update) “the most offensive [he’s] ever seen.” He takes particular umbrage at the idea of a student representative on City Council (”So your goal is to convince them to give you representation to push … what?”) and tenants’ rights (”You’re going to change Ann Arbor city law and Michigan contract law to affect the leases of tenants?”) Apparently, this law student has never heard of illegal clauses on leases that students obey anyway.
Why can’t the MSA push some real ideas? Like a soda machine in the cafeteria? No, wait, that was our junior high student council president’s platform. Nolan wants credit for LSAT classes.
His description of the Students 4 Michigan platform as “a litany of complaints,” though, compels us to give them our highest endorsement, from one complainer to another.
Nolan makes a good point and makes it well. MSA, under his leadership, accomplished more than it had in the five years prior (and maybe more) and the two years since combined.
It is true that having a student Regent and student representation on AA City Council are worthy ambitions. But Nolan’s right — they don’t even know what they’re going to do once they get there!
Plus, the LSAT/MCAT/GRE classes are clearly in demand.. Two independent businesses are in town to teach these courses to people who are in town to learn, but the institute that they’re there to learn from isn’t teaching them how to get their next degree? Why not cut out the middle man?
posted by Anonymous on November 18th, 2004 at 3:53 pmI wonder if he’s that critical of the vague platforms of other politicians?
posted by Kozzie on November 18th, 2004 at 7:39 pmI’m not sure how specific the text of the Students 4 Michigan platform is on this point, but to anyone who’s been paying attention, it’s obvious what a student representative on city council would do - stand up against anti-student initiatives and NIMBY neighborhood groups. Like the MSA did last summer with the couch ban. If they actually get this “rate-your-landlord” site up and running, the current MSA has really redefined what student government can do.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 18th, 2004 at 7:57 pmAs far as I can tell, the City Council representation thing is mostly just Rese Fox’s thing–none of the other candidates mention it in their bios on the party’s website. Take a look at the long-form of her platform on ArborUpdate. If I were an undergrad, I’d vote for her.
http://www.arborupdate.com/article/469/msa-candidate-rese-fox-on-ann-arbor
posted by Murph on November 18th, 2004 at 9:16 pmCredit for LSAT prep courses is the worst rich-kid-inspired idea I have heard in a while. Those courses are worthless anyway. Getting U-M credit for them is a joke.
posted by Matt on November 19th, 2004 at 4:34 amHi Nolan, Thanks for your above msg. What are the putative accomplishments of your administration, for those of us who missed them?
posted by Anna on November 19th, 2004 at 10:14 amYou can already get credit for the intro-to-logic classes people take to prepare for the LSAT anyway. Trust me on this one.
posted by Personality on November 19th, 2004 at 10:31 amwho’s to say that you need these extra classes to prepare for entrance exams anyway? perhaps it’s only poor (quality) students who don’t make the most of their college experience in the first place who need to seek out additional (dumbed-down) training in order to qualify for grad school. hey, law school graduates spend $100K plus getting their degrees and then still wind up paying for classes (or their firms do) to prepare for the bar.
maybe too many freakin’ people are going to grad school. law school is NOT something you should do for three years while you figure out your next move!
ok, so I’m being a bit harsh. but I took the GREs and the LSATs without prep classes and scored better than most–does that mean my college kicked all y’all’s asses? or does it mean that I was able to buy an $18 book at the store and sit myself down for half hour a day? maybe I should’ve gotten independent study credit…
posted by Alex(andra) on November 19th, 2004 at 11:09 amThe idea of giving credit (and, let’s be honest, using taxpayer funding) to prepare students for a test is outrageous to the idea that undergraduate education is supposed to prepare people to be well-rounded citizens who learn how to learn — the most important thing that college can teach.
The undergraduate vocational training the University already offers (read: BBA classes) is repugnant enough to the ideas of education not training being the core of an undergrad curriculum. And now students want to take a class effectively entitled “How to take a particular test?” Perhaps if they took a fair distribution of arts and sciences classes so they learned to read, think, analyze, quantify, and judge they would be set.
The fact is, people with liberal studies backgrounds do better on grad/professional school applications tests, advance quicker in the workplace, and make more money. The University should be stressing these facts, not training 18 year olds as accountants and telling 21 year olds how to take the LSAT.
My $0.02.
posted by Dan on November 21st, 2004 at 1:09 pmDan, this alum of the engineering school agrees with you, and wishes his undergrad had been spent in LSA rather than Technical-School-But-More-Expensive.
posted by Murph on November 22nd, 2004 at 11:14 amI would say that in many states, including this one, the entire public school system could be said to use taxpayer funding to prepare students for one test. Personally, I would rather have my hypothetical kids learn how to think and learn (as you are supposed to do when you get a liberal arts education) as early as elementary school.
posted by c-loh on November 22nd, 2004 at 3:02 pmIn fairness, at least some (I don’t know if it’s fair to say “much”) of what comes out of LS&Play is drivel. And given the choice of drivel or VoTech, I’ll take VoTech anyday.
I mean, why in the world is a class called “NonViolence in Action” with a class trip to the SOA protest in Georgia somehow academic? (The course description has this as its penultimate line: “You don’t need to be a pacifist to take this course!” I’m not kidding.)
And too many liberal studies grads, in my experience, have an irrational fear of quantitative classes, and they are every bit as irritating as physicists who can’t read.
I just wish one of the top-tier public universities would stand up and say, “Our job is to educate, not to train.” Make the English majors take chemistry and make the engineers learn anthropology. And save the damn b-school courses for your MBA.
posted by Dan on November 22nd, 2004 at 8:30 pmSpeaking of engineers and anthropology, has anyone seen the sign in the window next to the PFC that claims to develop your business computing something-or-other using “High Tech Anthropology”(TM)? Every time I see that, I think, WTF?
Maybe it means they look at how your personnel interact as individuals and in groups and develops a system to fit their use, but buzzwordy shit like that makes me want to punch somebody in the face.
posted by Dale on November 24th, 2004 at 4:31 pmIf anyone’s still reading this thread, I can understand why engineering undergrads might feel like they’re at technical school - there’s something of a factory mentality in the undergrad classes. But I have to agree with Dan about liberal arts majors. And, yes, b-school is the enemy against which humanities types and engineers must unite.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 29th, 2004 at 11:23 pmWho was the 1st anonymous commenter who recognized the logic in Nolan’s argument? I personally agree - student government needs to have an idea of what it wants to accomplish before trying to find new ways in which to accomplish it. Once it has maximized its utility in current form, then and only then should it branch out. Otherwise those new seats on boards are distractions.
I get the sense the anonymous poster is someone who’s been around for a while as the mentioned the “five years prior” which would have dated back to 1997ish. Identify yourself!
posted by remember2002 on November 30th, 2004 at 10:55 amThis cracks me up. As a good buddy of Nolan’s I think it’s funny that he’s firing everyone up. Recently, an e-mail to me from a kid named Stu (?) running for MSA informed me of the silly stuff that makes it on student gov’t platforms, and I find this post pretty interesting.
To the author of this blog, I’d like to point out that Nolan doesn’t disagree with student representatives on City Councils, etc. It’s just that representation for the sake of representation is a token issue. Sounds sexy and sounds important…but why do you want the representation? So you can deal with the ban on couches? Take it on anyway. You’ll be able to do so effectively just because you are the representative body of the students at Michigan. That’s pretty powerful.
The point is - and I’m on board here 100% - is that these student gov’t kids have the opportunity to make big changes. Fall Break, academic minors - those are real things that make a lasting impact and can actually be accomplished in the 1-2 years the average kid is on MSA for. Bringing Michael Moore to campus and asking for more representation…just because…well, it’s not what I would run on.
posted by Jessica Cash on November 30th, 2004 at 1:21 pmI used to think that stuff like academic minors was the best student government could do. And it least it would occupy their time and stop them from spending money on sending people out of state to protests on national issues. But when I saw the current MSA stand up to the couch ban and start working on that “Rate Your Landlord” site, I realized that student government was the best chance we had of getting an organized group to represent student interests in Ann Arbor. And in a student culture where so few even understand the importance of voting in Ann Arbor, we need reps that explicitly acknowledge the need for this kind of representation. I don’t think they’re just going to do it anyway.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on November 30th, 2004 at 5:42 pmI think the point that Jessica is making is that student government can represent those interests without seats on new boards. Spending time trying to get those seats takes away from time advocating for issues.
aa is over, where did you do undergrad?
posted by remember2002 on November 30th, 2004 at 8:51 pmBut I don’t think the MSA can advocate for issues without a clear understanding of where these issues might arise, i.e., City Council. Without some kind of seat, or at least an established position that involves showing up at every meeting and speaking during public comment if it’s needed, MSA will just be reacting to council decisions rather than providing a consistent student voice.
I went to MIT as an undergrad.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 1st, 2004 at 9:08 pmMSA currently has a position to do just such a thing; they have an External Relations Committee, with a chair and a vice-chair that are supposed to watch government (state, local, fed) for any and all things affecting students, report to the assembly, recommend necessary action, etc. If this committee were doing it’s already defined job, adding a new title would be superfluous.
The biggest problem in student government is not not having people/roles to get things done, it’s having the people in those roles actually doing them and accomplishing.
posted by remember2002 on December 2nd, 2004 at 12:28 pm