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MSUSA changes direction
By Cathy Kropp
 Media Credit: Ching Fung Kwame Johnson, the Academic Affairs chair, takes a call in the student government office. Student government has been busy dealing with the MSUSA relationship since the SCSU student body opted to pull out in December.
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In February, the SCSU student government will meet with state legislators to discuss the development of a bill that would allow universities represented by Minnesota State University Student Association (MSUSA) to choose whether or not they want to continue their relationship with the organization.
Early last December, students voted to separate from MSUSA, an organization that represents seven state universities, including SCSU, and works to lobby and vote on issues they feel are important to the schools. MSUSA services are paid for through student fees that can be up to 39 cents per credit hour.
One of the major concerns with MSUSA cited by the student government, was that although SCSU had 12 student seats at conferences, MSUSA only paid for six of the seats. The number of conference seats allotted to each school is proportionate to its student enrollment. SCSU is unable to afford to send students to fill the other six seats.
Sam Edmunds, MSUSA state chair, said that a budget is set every year by the students, and within that budget, it was decided that only six of SCSU's seats would be paid for. Edmunds said SCSU student representatives could bring up a proposal to have MSUSA pay for all 12 seats, and the students who decide the budget would most likely be in support of it. This issue will be further discussed in the coming months.
Another concern the student government had with MSUSA is that 50 percent of the organization's budget is in reserve.
Edmunds said that a common misconception is that MSUSA takes 50 percent of the money it receives each year and places it into reserve.
"It (the reserve situation) is often misconstrued," Edmunds said. "Some people think, for example, if we took in $500,000 this year, that half of it would go into reserves, but that's not true. These reserves have been built up over the last 20 years and are there to help us make it through that time period between April and October where there is no fee income. We need the reserves to cover basic cash flow ... without it, we would have to take out loans for our monthly expenses."
SCSU's student government was also concerned that the needs of individual schools were not being met, as most decisions were far-reaching and included problems faced at most or all of the seven universities represented by MSUSA.
Cory Lawrence, SCSU student government president, said that MSUSA is currently attempting to address this concern as well.
Lawrence said that there has been talk of creating a position for someone who would spend time on the individual campuses during the week, so that MSUSA can become more familiar with the concerns of each school.
It is mainly due to these attempts by MSUSA to work on student concerns that the decision to work on a bill that would allow SCSU to separate from MSUSA has been pushed aside. This is in favor of working towards an opt-in/opt-out bill.
"Our goal of an opt-in/opt-out bill would improve accountability for the system as a whole," Lawrence said. "Schools should have the ability to get out (of MSUSA) if they want."
Edmunds hopes the steps MSUSA is taking will help resolve issues SCSU and other schools have with the system, and possibly convince SCSU not to separate from MSUSA.
"In an ideal situation, the SCSU student government would bring back the issue during the next elections and the (vote to separate) will be reversed," Edmunds said.
Lawrence is unsure of whether or not SCSU will vote to separate if the bill passes, but he feels the student government needs to continue addressing concerns.
"I definitely think the organization (MSUSA) made enormous strides," Lawrence said.
"But we wouldn't be doing the students justice if we didn't continue to look at the issue."
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