Michigan State University - Red Cedar Log Yearbook (East Lansing, MI)

Page 28 text:

N., .. Student Congress meets weeltlv to confer on campus issues and Through his group leaders on Spartan Round Table any student on campus can get direct information and answers from the administration, while, at the same time, President Hannah and other university executives can sound out student thought on any university policy or program. For all its value, however, the Round Table is still an informal gathering and not a policy making body. To be successful it must be informal. In many cases direct administrative action is possible from Round Table discussion, but often as not, formal study of a problem is needed be- fore it can be either acted upon or dismissed. Here Student Government steps in. The concern of the All-University Student Government for the needs not only of the student body, but of the university as a whole, is expressed in two ways: by direct action through the legislation and administration of services such as polio shots and student insurance, or by congressional resolution to encourage action on the part of others.

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There was a time less than 50 years ago at MSU when the Wolverine contained a picture of nearly every undergraduate student here. Those were the days when a soapbox and a loud voice were all a student needed to be heard by just about everyone on campus. This made one part of the job of State,s President, that of finding the Ideas in llctiolx students' concerns as they themselves saw them, much easier. Even as recently as 20 years ago a convocation of the student body was a relatively simple thing to arrange. Today, needless to say, no place on campus smaller than Spartan Stadium could contain all of us, and nothing less than an individual public address system could allow any one of us to be heard. Even so, were such an arrangement possible, it would not surprise us to see President Hannah try it. Instead, he has instituted the Spartan Round Table. Twice each term the members of the Round Table are invited by President Hannah to dinner at either the Union or at his home, Cowles House. Attending these meetings are State's top administrators and, by far in the majority, student leaders ranging from dorm presidents to the Editor of the State News. After dinner President Hannah conducts an informal forum at which any questions may be asked, complaints heard and misunderstandings ironed out.

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Polio shots sponsored by AUSC offer health protection to students. Ms 'iw X s 35 V 2 I .y C9 49 Communication and thereby sup- port of the activities of Spartan Round Table and Student Government would be severely limited without the third basic element of Student Voice, the student press, which in addition to di- rect reporting, performs many adjunct services. These range from the State News editorial to the Spartan inter- view, and serve not only to inform, but to provoke thought on a broad variety of subjects. Publications also serve as a medium for other segments of Student Voice, which, though perhaps non-civic, are at least as important. Without this book itself, for instance, and the other Wolverines published over the past 50- odd years, there might be no such de- tailed record of each distinct year at MSU, and without student magazines, much of the writing done both by and for MSU people might not be pub- lished. The organized avenues of Student Voice at MSU are invaluable to the university, not only for what they al- low to be said, but for the discipline they exact in the saying. As such, they are instruments of learning com- parable to the classroom itself. Coffee, planning, cigarettes and controversy and 1 new Spartan is born. mfg- gig! 5 -l