Students deserve to know cost of ASMSU retreat

While it is true that one of the major purposes of the media is to hold public officials accountable, it is also true that investigative journalism typically involves more than just asking questions, and raising concerns. In this case, to compare student leadership positions to front line “cafeteria workers” or “receptionists” simply speaks to a general ignorance on the topic of leadership. Perhaps your arguments would be more coherent if you compared apples to apples. I suggest that the SN look into the practices of campus leaders who provide the vision and planning for a variety of programs and services (i.e., Campus Living Services, or Campus Culinary Services) and draw a legitimate comparison.

Rick,
You seem to be degrading the importance of caf workers and receptionists. Is the purpose of these retreats simply to feed power hungry ego’s? Sure seems like training for more serious future coruption.

State news is doing a commendable job. Thanks for keeping the students aware on their money being ill-spent. I agree with tedman, the retreat is more like feeding the fellow student’s hungry egos .. and making them feel the big shots of some corrupted government. Couldn’t they meet at MSU Union or International center to talk about the goals and accomplish the purpose of a retreat? In this dying economy, you really do not want to have irresponsible leaders and encourage them hanging out in Hilton Hotels and likes. guys won’t even catch a glimpse of Paris Hilton if that was an implicit goal :D

Get your refund from ASMSU and shut up about it.

The majority of students that I talk to and know don’t care about this at all. Write about something actually newsworthy for a change.

In response to ‘Really?’: The majority of students could care less about your opinion, but you still are being published on here. If you don’t care that people are being scraped of money, money that people are paying out of their own pockets, then grow up and get off the state news’ site!

I’d be more concerned with the Board of Trustees wasting money on professors and graduate assistants who can’t speak proper English more than nickling and diming student government; that is, if I were an intelligent student.

Wow, 23 cents per student, and all that bought was a retreat? How much for an advance? And why not a victory?

ASMSU has a purpose, as a union of the students. Look back to the old days, say 1964, and you realize how ugly this place can get if the admin goes unchecked. Students were expelled, for questioning authority, even for breaking curfew at their dorms.

The ASMSU “dollar” — what we charged in the early days — covers quite a lot of reasonable expenses, though not junkets. The steady drift, though, has been toward concerts and activities and giveaways. And toward growth of a paid staff that will tell you how to do all that.

But government, even with a small “g,” seems to be forgotten. Speaking as a former Student Board member, I think ASMSU needs to return to its roots. Skip the bread and circuses. Become aware of the real challenges, form a plan and act.

Several things to note on this article:

The amount of money spent on the the retreat (as I understand) is $10,000 and this was considered wasteful. The article then compared this to the cafeteria and said that the cafeteria workers do not spend this much.
State New’s argues that the cafeteria workers spend way more than ASMSU spends on their retreat. Each Complex(there are 4 complexes) has about 75 Supervisors(I don’t know the exact numbers, but this is an understatement). Just looking at the Level III they were asked to start training August 17, this is two weeks(10 working days) where you need to pay supervisors to work. Paying the students 8.15 $/hour (as an understatement again) will cost the cafeteria $48,000. This is the cost for the employment hours, the cafeteria also pays for the workers meals and living expenses for those 14 days. There is also around 400 Level 1 workers that arrived to school early and this costed a great deal of expenses also (probably greater than the supervisors).
This means that the ASMSU retreat actually cost way less than does training supervisors!!!

To my knowledge(mostly using common sense, but it seems lately that state news doesn’t have much of that) there is a large deal of training that is needed to train ASMSU members. ASMSU said in their articles that they chose Chrystal Mountain because it was the cheapest (also makes sense, they went to a empty ski resort in the summer). There training cost were much lower than than the cafeteria’s also. So, ASMSU, I commend you finding a way to keep costs down, unlike the cafeteria and many other student groups that invite student to come up to school early to train and prepare them. I bet you State New’s reporters were up at state getting ready for the “welcome edition” and training. Why doesn’t state news report their expenses for that time.

ALSO, to my knowledge, ASMSU is one of the only Big Ten Universities that do not pay their representatives, so it seems like ASMSU is very conscious about their spending habits…
A great deal more could be said about this article and “State New’s” stance on ASMSU’s issues, but it aggregates me too much to to hear the “student newspaper” constantly complain about the “student government”…
STATE NEWS, WITH ALL THE BUDGET CUTS THE UNIVERSITY OFFICIALS ARE TAKING FROM THE STUDENTS. THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER AND THE STUDENT GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE WORKING TOGETHER TO TACKLE THE ISSUES WITH THE UNIVERSITY. makes sense to me!

Actually, ASMSU is one of very few universities in the US that pays ANYONE working for them, representatives or staff. It is by far the norm that students in governments take positions with the idea they will get paid 0. ASMSU is overpaid and bloated.

tedman,

My message was in no way an intended disrespect to cafeteria workers or receptionists, and I certainly apologize if anyone took it that way. My point was simply that it was a poor comparison. Direct service providers (i.e., receptionists, dining room ticket checkers) are generally not responsible for establishing and communicating a larger organizational plan. While I would certainly encourage involving all members of an organization to be participants in such a process, it doesn’t usually start with them. A retreat provides the time and space for creative thought and work that cannot typically be done while in the midst of day to day work and stress.

All that aside, I cannot speak to what ASMSU actually accomplished on their retreat. I am only speaking to those who seem to find no value in this kind of activity in general.

Does that make sense?

They’re not that different from actual government – worthless, wasteful, and have a high opinion of themselves and their worth.

If you were an intelligent student you’d know the university “wastes” the money to hire professors and graduate assistants to bring in research money. For $30k a pop, it’s pretty cheap to have a Ph.D candidate from Russia who probably got a 90th percentile on his subject GRE and use him to land the FRIB.

Actually, ASMSU is one of very few universities in the US that pays ANYONE working for them, representatives or staff. It is by far the norm that students in governments take positions with the idea they will get paid 0. ASMSU is overpaid and bloated.

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1. ASMSU is not a university.

2. Representatives are not paid.

3. It is the norm to pay staff.