Brown-nosing fan club shows MSA can't represent student interests

The group's existence seemed a symbol of an enamored student body won over by the University's charismatic new president.

I pictured a collection of earnest, well-meaning undergrads holding weekly reading groups for "A Tolerant Society." Perhaps they occasionally met with Bollinger at a local coffee house, where everyone discussed the virtues of Michigan athletics, affirmative action and the U.S. Constitution. The club could hold special celebrations on Bollinger's birthday. Each fall there could be meet-the-president tailgate parties and all-campus ice cream socials. Perhaps we'd even see a Bollinger look-alike contest.

But it's not that simple.

The fan club instead consists largely of the University's most notorious apple polishers. Far from of an innocent bunch of admiring undergrads, the group represents a massive conflict of interest for the University's woebegone student government and a new high in hypocrisy.

The Official Fan Club for the University of Michigan President: Lee C. Bollinger (as the group e-mail list clumsily bills itself) reads like a who's who of the Michigan Student Assembly: Members include MSA President Trent Thompson, Vice President Sarah Chopp, Treasurer Bram Elias, former presidential candidate and LSA Rep. Ryan Friedrichs, and a host of other MSA representatives and failed candidates.

Jeff Eldridge Sticks and Stones

It doesn't take a lot of cynicism to see the hypocrisy behind such a roster.

The folks on MSA like to make a big show of talking about students. They run around like a pack of bush-league demagogues trying to establish a student regent. Along with filling the halls with annoying trash, their campaign posters pledge to stand up to the administration and fight for lower tuition rates.

Naturally, few of their goals materialize.

Converging together in a small fan club for the University president, as if Bollinger were New Kids on the Block, doesn't help.

Such hijinks are why the University treats MSA like a bad joke.

My criticism is not a dig on Bollinger. There probably should be a student fan club for him. He let us all hang out in his house after a football game; he spars with undergrads in his poli sci course; he's like a hyper-articulate version of your best friend's father. I keep waiting for him to take the campus population to a Tiger's game, a swim at the pool, and then treat us to dinner at Ponderosa; perhaps, if he can work out the logistics, this will happen soon.

But no matter how swell a president is, he or she should always be questioned, respectfully and otherwise, by portions of the campus - particularly its newspaper and student government.

This fan club's cliquey membership casts a harsh light on MSA's already-dubious effort to see a student on the Board of Regents. It's silly (to say the least) for MSA to argue it needs a voice in the administration when its leaders are doing everything they can to snuggle up to those they might have to confront.

It also calls to mind the role of a student government in a campus with a long history of activism and protests. I don't think it would be a good thing if MSA and hordes of wild-eyed radicals stormed the Fleming Building, picketed daily on the Diag, and annoyed everyone by screaming chants through megaphones.

But it's inherent that the goals of a president and the goals of a student government occasionally diverge - as with the Code of Student Conduct. I'd rather see the student government thoughtfully working to change issues of great concern, instead of fawning over the powerful figure who controls their eventual results.

Does forming a fan club for the school's president lead to constructive dialogue between students and administrators?

No. It makes those students look like star-struck hypocrites. I don't know if I could seriously engage with a group of people who formed a fan club for me.

Considering MSA's lack of import, maybe this shouldn't be a problem.

But with issues like the Code, affirmative action and the recent Daniel Granger travesty at stake, it would be nice to know MSA is behaving professionally and responsibly.

Their admiration for our president shouldn't undermine their presumed maturity as student leaders.

There's a middle ground between bomb throwing and brown nosing; our student government leaders badly need to find it.

-Jeff Eldridge can be reached over e-mail at jeldridg@umich.edu.

09-10-98