Big Ten student governments focus on diversity

MADISON - Student government members from nine Big Ten universities, including the Michigan Student Assembly, tackled campus issues such as diversity, Title IX and the administration-student relations at the Association of Big Ten Students Fall 1999 Conference this weekend at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

"Our hope is that MSA can always come back from ABTS with new ideas and concrete benefits for students," said MSA President Bram Elias, an LSA senior.

"This year, the general assembly of Big Ten schools decided to have an emphasis on diversity," explained Wisconsin senior Amelia Rideau, who coordinated the event.

Rideau, who is vice chair of the Associated Students of Madison Student Council, said the resolution, which passed after an extensive debate this summer, came in response to the "very few women, people of color and (the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community) who have been present at these conferences."

The emphasis on diversity resulted in a two-session workshop in which all 80 representatives participated. The first session consisted of a series of "self-identifying exercises." During these exercises, workshop leader Michael Franklin described a category, and everyone who identified with the description would stand up.

The categories varied from derogatory names to perceptions about different ethnic groups.

"When representatives of their campuses are trying to learn diversity or implement diversity they have to consider three major things - safety, comfort and sanity - of not just everybody but specifically those groups who have been and still are oppressed due to sexism, racism and homophobia," Franklin said.

He defined sanity as "the ability to understand, comprehend and succeed on an academic level."

Representatives presented opposing views when Franklin asked how they felt about the iconography of Native Americans used for an athletic team's nickname.

"It's not demeaning," a representative from Ohio State University's student government said, "It stands for something good, something strong."

But University of Iowa sophomore Azadeh Tavakoli said "a lot of Native American children see themselves made being made fun of on these hats and uniforms. I've worked on research which has proven that the high rates of alcoholism and suicide are a direct result of this."

She added that she has experienced these issues herself and witnessed them in her family.

During the second diversity workshop, delegates discussed, with their university representatives, diversity issues relevant to each institution.

They then met as an entire delegation and shared their ideas.

"It was good to sit down and discuss diversity on a formal level," said co-Chair of MSA's Women's Issues Commission Riley Hoffman, an LSA senior.

SNRE junior and MSA Rep. Mona Gupta said she agreed. "I think we were able to re-evaluate the way MSA currently exists and functions," she said.

The assembly decided the best way to improve diversity within MSA and the campus is to increase communication with different student groups so assembly members interact more with these groups.

The conference also consisted of four issue sessions. Representatives from each school discussed and analyzed a specific issue, including campus safety, alcohol, universities' governing boards and university-city relations.

Chrisitna Stejskal, director of Women's Issues of the United Council, facilitated the issue session and said she hoped to change the initial perceptions about Title IX.

"There seems to be a general understanding that Title IX deals with more than just athletics, but it applied to all services and all activities. I wanted to expand their view of Title IX into curriculum and coursework," she said.

During the issue session regarding the governing board and student relations, the representatives discussed the current state of the relationship between each university's student body and their respective governing board and possible improvements.

Michigan State University and the University of Michigan were the only ABTS members of the eight schools in attendance without student representation on their governing boards.

But MSU has four non-voting student liaisons who are invited to breakfast prior to board meetings, an MSU representative said. Ohio State University's student regent is also a non-voting position.

University of Michigan LSA senior Abe Rafi said of the conference, "I learned ways to empower students so that they may represent themselves instead of me representing them."

11-01-99