The executive committee has issued the following report for the February 6, 2024 Assembly Meeting:
Upcoming Events:
Take Your Professor to Lunch, Operation Graduation, Black History Month programming, Valentine’s Day Wellness Event (Wolverine Rm., 2/12 5:00-8:00pm), Subsidized Professional Headshots (Week of 2/12, 2/19), Student Art Fair (North Campus, tentatively 2/16), Go Blue Goes Green (2210 ABC, 3/9 & 3/10)
Programs and Events:
Black History Month:
Policy Advisor on DEIJ Nneka Obiekwu has connected with MESA to work with their Black History Month planning committee. We are co-sponsoring their Black History Month programming, the first event of which was last night’s opening ceremony. This year, the theme is “Empowering Generations: Past, Present, and Future,” with a focus on Black creativity and expression. Nneka is also working on creating a social media highlight for Black student leaders on campus, which was promoted in our All-Campus email last week.
Subsidized Headshot Program:
Chief of Staff Juliette Quenioux is running our Subsidized Headshot Program, which offers free professional headshots for students. We are expanding the program with extra time slots this semester, following high interest in the program. This will be taking place throughout the week of 2/12 and 2/19 on both Central and North Campuses. The link to register was sent out in the February All-Campus email last week and will be distributed on our social media.
Valentine's Day Wellness Event:
The Programming team is working on holding a wellness event with the Center for Campus Involvement for Valentine’s Day. This event will be taking place on Monday, February 12, from 5:00-8:00pm in the Pendleton room of the Union. We are also working with student organizations that are focused on student wellness, including WSN, Letters of Love, CAPS in Action, the Spectrum Center, and Wolverine Wellness.
‘Hearts and Crafts’ Student Art Fair:
The Programming team is also planning a student art fair on North Campus called ‘Hearts and Crafts’. We are collaborating with TUT on this to remind and inform people on early voting that will be happening, and to try and discuss voting in a mental-health-conscious way. This will be taking place on Thursday, February 15, from 3:30-5:30pm in the Piano Lounge of Pierpont Commons. We are working with Zero Waste U-M to implement waste-reduction initiatives at the event, and connecting with local charities for the activity tables at the event.
Go Blue Goes Green:
The Programming team is working on a reiteration of our popular Go Blue Goes Green event, our free campus thrift store. This will be taking place on Saturday, March 9 from 10:00-6:00pm and Sunday, March 10 from 10:00-4:00pm in the 2210 ABC room of the Union. We are working on expanding the reach of the program, and have connected with apartment complexes, RHA, and Panhel.
Operation Graduation:
Operation Graduation is up and running again this semester! Through this program, students have the opportunity to receive free graduation gowns, which will be awarded on a first-come, first served basis. Interest forms were sent out last week in our February All-Campus email. This semester, we are rethinking the operations of this program–we will be doing a free “rental” system to bolster the re-use of the gowns and build up a running inventory of gowns for semester-over-semester use.
Take Your Professor to Lunch:
Take Your Professor/GSI to Lunch is also starting back up this semester! This program provides vouchers for free lunch for a group of up to four students and at least one professor or GSI. This semester, we are offering 60 lunches. The interest form for this also went out in the all-campus email last week. Our programming intern, Max Stefanski, has been working with members of the University Union staff to make this program smoother for participating students and CSG staff alike.
Policy Team:
Vice President Bipasha Ray’s High-Risk Planning Student Sub-Committee met with stakeholders in FSL to push for further access to nightcaps and test strips in strategic areas to promote and normalize personal safety right before the break. They are attending FSL & Panhel leadership meetings in the next few weeks to plan for the creation of a nightcap pilot program, and are researching the best ways to advocate for the creation of a city ordinance for the bar portion of the program.
Policy Advisor on Affordability and Accessibility Emily Ryan met with the Director of Student Accessibility and Accommodation Services (SAAS) last week. Emily and her commission, the Disability Empowerment and Advocacy Commission, are very excited to work with the Adaptive Sports program this semester. They are also connecting with SAAS’s Accessibility research coordinator to use existing data to inform future initiatives. Emily’s intern, Katie Rose, is also working on the Accessibility portion of CSG’s Resource Guide as well as the University’s financial resources document, updating resources and reformatting it to make it more digestible for students.
Policy Advisor on Mental Health and Wellness Aditi Vijendra is conducting research on two current CSG initiatives. The first is looking into strategies to boost engagement with our Calm app program, and the second is a comprehensive report for SMPSEC on their new wellness vending machine put into the Union in January.
Policy Advisor on Sustainability Brandon Cooper is meeting with MDining leadership about including more variety of inclusive options in the dining halls. He is also working on planning a plastic bag drive and has connected with SCANN, the Student Carbon Neutrality Network on the creation of an orientation and education model for sustainability.
Our Finance team is starting to work on improving outreach to companies to increase user subscriptions and benefits to offer to U-M communities as a whole.
Policy Director Gwen Tatara is working with Beyond the Diag to refresh their off-campus housing guide. BTD is a U-M program developed to provide resources to students living off campus. To support her research on this topic, she has rolled out a survey on off-campus housing experiences that we also pushed in the December ACE. It has about 500 responses so far–please fill it out here, and encourage your constituents to do so as well!
Government Relations Director Akhila Mullapudi is connecting with Turn Up Turnout (TUT) for strategic planning around the upcoming primary election. She has also worked with representatives from Dearborn and Flint student governments to investigate tri-campus transportation.
Policy Director Gwen Tatara, along with Bipasha Ray and intern Lidia Cappelletti, are waiting for Procurement to approve our agreements with the Princeton Review and UWorld, two partnerships that will allow U-M students to receive discounted test prep materials and free consultations targeted at students pursuing graduate degrees. We will be releasing information on how students can take advantage of these partnerships on social media as soon as they are approved–keep an eye out!
If you have any questions or would like to meet with the President or Vice President, please contact Chief of
Staff to the President Juliette Quenioux (julietq@umich.edu)