The executive committee has issued the following report for the November 14, 2023 Assembly Meeting:
Executive Updates:
Upcoming Events: Operation Graduation, Hydration Stations, Halloween Goes Green, Subsidized Headshots (11/14-11/17), Sustainability Town Hall (11/15), Renters’ Rights & City Planning Workshop (11/16, 7-9pm, Kuenzel), Chill Out (Winter Wellbeing, 11/30, the Diag)
Programs and Events:
Operation Graduation Program
The Programming team has been working with gown distributors to finalize the details of Operation Graduation distribution, for which we received interest from more than 180 students. Through this program, students have the opportunity to receive free graduation gowns, which will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. This year, the Programming team will be distributing gowns in sustainable packages! Barnes and Noble is giving us a 15% discount, and we will be able to cover the costs for 60 Bachelors and 20 Masters gowns! Students have been communicated with and will have until November 30th to pick up their gowns using vouchers. They are also collecting donations for the recycling portion of the program, with boxes located in the Union, Dude, Hatcher, and UgLi since last Wednesday, November 8th.
Airbus
Airbus reservations for Thanksgiving break are now open for student sign-ups on the CSG website.
Renter's Rights and City Planning Workshop - Thursday, November 16th from 7:00-9:00pm
CSG will be collaborating with the Urban Planning Student Association on a Renters Rights and City Planning Workshop. This will take place on Thursday, November 16th from 7-9pm in the Kuenzel Room of the Union. At this event, there will be polling exercises to send to the Ann Arbor City Planning Committee and information outreach tabling with the Renters Commission and GEO’s Housing Caucus on renter’s rights. You can volunteer to help out here!
Headshot Program - 11/14 - 11/17
Chief of Staff Juliette Quenioux and her intern Shane Baum are running a reiteration of the subsidized headshot program. Sign-ups went out in the ACE, with slots today, Thursday November 16th, and Friday November 17th. These are first-come, first-serve, and will take place on both Central and North Campus. This program offers free professional headshots for students in collaboration with Michigan Photography. The first day of headshots took place today–we had full sign-ups and were able to provide headshots to 50 students today. Throughout the four sessions, we will be providing 200 slots available, almost all filled so far.
Take Your Professor to Lunch Program
Programming Board member Hailey Hartz is running a reiteration of our Take Your Professor to Lunch program, which provides vouchers for free lunch. This program intends to connect students with their professors in both their academic and professional areas of interest. We were able to cover the cost of 35 groups of up to four students and at least one professor or GSI. Distribution ended last week, and we are receiving feedback to inform future iterations.
Halloween Goes Green
Sustainability Policy Advisor Sayoni Bandyopadhyay is working with LSA SG on “Halloween Goes Green”, a costume recycling program that aims to reduce clothing waste by recirculating Halloween costumes. They are currently collecting donations–there are bins in the CSG and LSA SG offices, and collections will close this Friday, November 17th.
Native American Heritage Month
Policy Advisor for DEIJ Nneka Obiekwu is working with the Native American Student Association and MESA for Native American Heritage Month to support their initiatives and programming this month!
Sustainability Town Hall - Wednesday, November 15th from 5:30-7:30pm
Policy Advisor for Sustainability Sayoni Bandyopadhyay is planning a Sustainability Town Hall to connect administrators with students on topics including sustainable finance, facilities, operations, Campus Plan 2050, and carbon neutrality. This will be taking place on Wednesday, November 15th from 6:00-7:30 in the Kuenzel Room of the Union. Sayoni additionally met with SCANN, the Student Carbon Neutrality Network, tonight as a part of her outreach to students.
Recycling Programs
Policy Advisor for Affordability and Accessibility Emily Ryan is running our recycling programs for calculators and test prep books. Outreach has additionally been done to the professional fraternities on campus, specifically for test prep materials for our textbook shelf.
"Chill Out": winter-themed well-being day - Thursday, November 30th
The Programming team is currently planning “Chill Out”, a Winter-themed wellbeing day taking place on Thursday, November 30th on the Diag. The goal for this event is to advertise wellness resources and wellbeing student groups on campus and encourage taking time for self-care as finals come up. Programming is finalizing various vendor contracts and details on activities. Policy Advisor for Mental Health and Wellbeing Aditi Vijendra met with MDining leadership about this event, and Programming has also connected with Zero Waste U-M to ensure we are being intentional about sustainability and waste in this event. Please volunteer to help out here!
Hydration Stations
Next week marks our last Hydration Station of the year! Alongside Fraternity & Sorority Life (FSL) leadership, we were able to cover the cost of 100 cases of water bottles and staff stations at each game throughout the Fall football season, reaching 4,000 students in total. Looking ahead, the programming team is conducting research on sustainable alternatives for future iterations of this program.
Policy Team:
Vice President Bipasha Ray’s High-Risk Planning Student Sub-Committee is connecting with Ann Arbor bars this week about placing nightcaps in strategic areas to promote and normalize personal safety. They are also reaching out to other BIG10 schools about what has worked for them and conducting further research on test strips and easy-access substances.
Policy Advisor on DEIJ Nneka Obiekwu is in the initial stages of planning outreach toward student organizations concerning the University’s rollout of their new DEI 2.0 Plan. She is also connecting with MESA this week to work with their Black History Month planning committee on programming for January.
Policy Director Gwen Tatara is working with Beyond the Diag to refresh their off-campus housing guide. BTD is a UM program developed to provide off-campus resources to students. To support her research on this topic, they will also be rolling out a survey on off-campus housing experiences this Thursday, November 16th.
Policy Advisor on Mental Health and Wellbeing Aditi Vijendra is working on refreshing the existing CSG resource guide on wellbeing resources. These will additionally be distributed during Finals Week, as part of our Finals Week Wellness initiative.
Policy Director Gwen Tatara, along with Bipasha and intern Lidia Cappelletti, have met with the Princeton Review and are finalizing details of a partnership. This will enable students to receive subsidized materials, free consultations, and two free events each semester targeted at pre-professional students. They have one more follow-up meeting scheduled with Kaplan, and are working on getting propositions through procurement and deciding the next steps for partnerships with UWorld, Blueprints, and Seven Sages.
SMPSEC is working with various organizations on campus, including WORTH, to see how CSG can support education about contraceptive use and accessibility, as well as conducting research on the possibility of a vending machine that includes wellness materials.
SMPSEC intern Ananya Patil has begun to meet with SAPAC, the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center at U-M, on a weekly basis, and we are excited about continuing to support their initiatives.
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).