MSA asks ASUM board to disband

By Erica Zucco

Published Nov. 30, 2007

The executive board of the Associated Students of the University of Missouri has been asked to disband.

ASUM Board of Directors member Clint Birdsong said Missouri Students Association President Rachel Anderson and Vice President Andrew Cafourek called for the disbandment of the system-wide board of directors because they viewed some of the inefficiencies at the central level as detrimental to the entire organization.

Birdsong said the board of directors met and determined that there would be a way to reform the organization and consequently increase efficiency that would not require disbandment of the organization.

MSA founded ASUM in 1975, claiming that students needed a legislative body to advocate for student concerns from the Columbia, Kansas City, Rolla and St. Louis campuses. Each year, MU students pay a fee that funds ASUM's efforts to lobby on a statewide basis for student interests and facilitate an internship program aimed toward improving students knowledge of government.

ASUM has a central governing board of directors. Each of the four campuses involved provides three representatives, and that body elects a chairperson to oversee the board. Birdsong said one of the main functions of ASUM is a state legislative internship program in which ASUM selects a slate of interns to represent student interests in Jefferson City and Washington, D.C. The board of directors meets four or five times a year and sets legislative policies for those interns.

Anderson said she and Cafourek attended the ASUM Board of Directors meeting last year and supported the idea of ASUM reforming and changing within itself.

"I feel it's important for students to have a legislative arm in Jefferson city," Anderson said.

Anderson said she and Cafourek attended several meetings and realized that ASUM was still not becoming more effective. Anderson said when the Student Fee Review Committee was reviewing organizational budgets, she did not feel confident saying the ASUM board was worth the fees spent to maintain it.

"The board is 100 percent redundant with what ISC does," Cafourek said. "Columbia pays about 80 percent of the overall costs for ASUM and has only 44 percent of the students. Something is wrong here."

Anderson said she feels the interns lobbying in Jefferson City are efficient with their spending, and that the main problems lie with the board.

"At the end of the day, we need to be fiscally conservative so that students aren't paying more than they need to," Anderson said.

If the board of directors disbands, ISC would, most likely, fulfill their previous responsibilities, Birdsong said.

ISC consists of leaders from each school's student government body, as well as a student representative to the UM system Board of Curators and a representative from ASUM. Anderson, Cafourek, Graduate Professional Council President Jennifer Holland and Tony Luetkemeyer, student representative to the Board of Curators, represent MU as part of the council.

Birdsong said he felt ISC could possibly do as good or better of a job than the board of directors, but he also felt ASUM's reforms would be sufficiently effective.

Cafourek said several ASUM members have proposed a plan to decentralize control of legislative interns that would omit previous board responsibilities. He said that, in this case, ISC would set legislative agenda.

"The ASUM board is a rubber stamp for what the ISC creates," Cafourek said. "As long as we have one person running the show on each campus, I feel we'd be in better shape."