Sabrina Shingwani, MSA President

Arvind Sohoni, MSA Vice President

Hi, I'm Sabrina Shingwani, a 3rd year Sociology major and my running mate Arvind Sohoni is a 3rd year Business major. I'm involved with Dance Marathon, the Detroit Project, the Michigan Union Board of Representatives, the Association of Big Ten Students and I've served in numerous capacities on MSA during my three years of being involved with it, spending the past year on the executive board as the Treasurer. Arvind is involved with the Phi Alpha Delta pre-law fraternity, the Michigan Journal of Political Science, the College Democrats, and also spent the past year on the MSA executive board as the Student General Counsel.

STUDENTS RIGHTS

• Updated Students' Rights Cards- MSA put out Students' Rights wallet sized cards roughly two years ago so that students would be aware of their alcohol related rights. With the recent change in Michigan's breathalyzation laws, it's time to revisit that project and inform students of their new rights.
• Dorm Door Hangers - By collaborating with RHA, we can provide students in dorms with door hangers that inform them of their housing and alcohol related rights. Door hangers are a great way to get information out to students when they're new to campus.
• Follow up with the Lease Signing Ordinance - In its first year, the Lease Signing Ordinance had a positive effect on countless off-campus students, but there was still a loophole. After the recent renegotiation, MSA needs to follow up with the Ordinance on both students' and landlords' ends and ensure that it is successful and that students have an avenue of communication in case of landlords breaking the ordinance and its overall regulation.

• Newspaper Readership Program - As of last week, we have met with both the College Readership and the NYTimes Readership Programs. We are currently in negotiations about costs related to both programs and sources of funding for the program itself.
• Alumni Career Connections - Have you seen the B-School's connections to alumni recruiters? Their broad networks basically ensure that every graduate will secure a job. We need a University-wide implementation of this so that students from every school or college have access to better jobs. It'll help the administration, it'll help the students, and it'll help recruiters.

• Financial Aid Reform - This is a basic need for students to simply come to this University. Let's work toward getting assigned financial aid advisors in addition to walk-in advising.
• Health Insurance - The statistics alone show that the insurance policies provided to students by the University need to be reexamined, and MSA has acted upon engaging Health administration about this. We are currently encouraging the Health System to provide us with data about how much students who are not insured pay for health services and plan on taking further action to increase the range of health insurance and decrease the cost so that students do not go uninsured.
• Buses to away sporting events - It'd be great to have a strong UofM presence at prominent games held at schools like Michigan State or Ohio State, but often students do not have transportation to and from the games. By collaborating with a few other organizations, such as Maize Rage, MSA can help provide transportation for little or no cost to students so we can root for our teams at away games.
• Institutionalization of Voter Registration - As we are in the midst of an election year, voter registration will be key so that students on campus can be politically engaged in our future. Our Voice Your Vote commission is a powerhouse when it comes to registering voters, but we can do more by working to institutionalize voter registration.

• Increase Off-Campus Lighting - By working with our the MSA Alumni and the Alumni Association, we can raise money to provide more lighting to key student housing zones off-campus. Private donors, MSA alumni, IFC has raised money for campus safety in the past. We need to make a good sell using crime statistics from DPS, student testimonials, and pictures. We can compile these and take them to interested parties. We're working on getting the crime statistics. At this point we're just waiting for DPS to get us statistics and we're set.

• Encourage more dialogue between student leaders on campus - A new representative had a great idea to encourage this, as he feels as though student organizations on campus tend to be disconnected, though they can often work to benefit from collaborations. MSA is a great body to help facilitate such conversations
• Campus Political Leadership Luncheon - CPLL was very well attended this past year and questionnaires filled out after the event indicated a desire for semesterly luncheons. With transition dates in leadership varying from organization to organization, having a semesterly CPLL will keep a constant flow of information going among political leaders while also engaging newer leaders early on in their terms.
• Increase LGBT outreach - Our University created the first college office of LGBT Affairs in the nation. We are truly the leaders and best in our social justice efforts for the LGBT community. Let's bid to bring the MGLBTCC Conference to Ann Arbor during the Spring Break of 2011 and recruit more and more allies to support our strong LGBT community.
• Upholding Diversity Post Prop 2 - MSA has succeeded this year in sending letters out to all incoming students emphasizing the University's diverse climate. By continuing to work with the Office of Admissions, we can increase diversity on campus, especially in light of the fact that admissions of underrepresented minorities have dropped since the passage of Prop 2.

• Increase Committee/Commission Membership - By reaching out to student groups on campus that have similar interests to our committees and commissions, we can engage more students in student government. Let's have each committee and commission serve as a unifying force on campus.
• Better Publicity - MSA often goes unnoticed for the work we do. To fix this, we've been working hard on ensuring that our new website will be launched in August. In addition to that, let's have a strong MSA presence at every school and college's orientation event this summer. Let's brand MSA onto every event we throw and every event we fund through BPC and CSC.
• Increased Accountability - By putting representative and committee and commissions' goals and projects on our new website, not only will we be able to hold each other accountable, but the student body will be able to hold us accountable. This increased transparency will help show the campus community the hard work we put into MSA.