The Associated Students of Madison had a general meeting April 12 to discuss recent legislation to remove seven ASM positions.
The positions include the Anti-Violence Coordinator, Diverse Engagement Coordinator, Outreach Director, Shared Governance Campaign Director and Sustainability Campaign Coordinator.
Twenty-three people came to the open forum and spoke about the positions, and 19 people particularly spoke for the sustainability campaign coordinator to not be removed. Mark Johnson, a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin School of Education, spoke at the meeting in support of the sustainability campaign coordinator. Johnson talked about how student advocacy for sustainability has prevented many destructive projects from being on campus, like a highway through lakeshore path, a clearcut of the Muir woods and more.
Members from student organizations also spoke in favor of the Diverse Engagement Coordinator position.
“The very people that I had represented hours ago are the very ones that are voting and eliminating my representation,” Mecha member Josiah Gomez said. “It’s honestly disgusting and disappointing to see that it plays so differently, and the people that are already marginalized, people that are already on the sides of our school, of our society, they’re getting cut off.”
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After about an hour of an open forum, new legislation was brought to the floor with the first piece being an expansion of the co-responders program. With this program, when there is a mental health crisis on campus, a mental health professional from UHS responds alongside UWPD. The legislation proposed to increase the hours this service is available from 2 p.m.- 6 p.m. to 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. The legislation was passed unanimously.
The next piece of legislation proposed was a resolution in favor of fully paid family leave for UW employees. This legislation acts as ASM voicing support for the changes, in complete agreement with the reports presented by the Committee for Women in the University and the ad-hoc working group on Family Leave for UW-Madison Employees.
Two more pieces of legislation were introduced to change the wording of the ASM bylaws pertaining to internal affairs and the judiciary.
Finally, the committee reached the final piece of legislation which was the removal of the positions. The legislation was split up into multiple sections so that each vote would be on one position rather than all positions at once. The first position voted on was the Anti-Violence Coordinator.
“The fact of the matter is, as a person of color, as a queer person, being able to sit in these rooms and tell administrators about the problems that face the communities that I represent, that I have a stake in, is something that many students who come from these communities don’t get an opportunity to do,” current Anti-Violence Coordinator, Landis Varughese said.
The Anti-Violence Coordinator’s removal failed in a 3-14 vote.
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The next position voted on was the Outreach Director which had minimal debate regarding the removal. Current Outreach Director Katie Magnus said the position is ineffective at reaching the 40,000 students on campus. The position was removed in a 13-1 vote.
The Diverse Engagement Coordinator position was not removed.
Former Shared Governance Campaign Coordinator Dominic Zappia spoke in favor on the position’s removal. Zappos said the position was detrimental to the committee he served on. The position was removed with a 10-1 vote. The last position voted on was the Sustainability Campaign Coordinator, which in a 4-13 vote, was not removed.
“Student representatives represented students in the best way they saw fit,” ASM Chair Ndemazea Fonkem said after the meeting.
