(!) Mandatory MSC Fall 2010 Meeting by Gary Weisserman on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 8:15 AM

There will be a MANDATORY orientation session for UM-Ann Arbor EDU 362, Michigan Student Caucus (Professors Weisserman, McDowell and Kupperman) at Schorling Auditorium in the School of Education on Tuesday, Sept 14th, 7:00-9:00pm.

Returning students should anticipate staying an additional fifteen minutes or so.

Following the orientation, we will be addressing those students who need overrides. We are not yet sure how many we will be able to accommodate, but will do our best to help as many students as possible.

An orientation for students in EDT 532 at UM-Flint will be held Wednesday, Sept. 15, 5:00-6:00pm in 554 French Hall.

Technical notes:

The new Michigan Student Caucus site is still in beta. Thanks for your patience in helping us make it better!

At the moment, you'll need the Firefox or Safari browser to be able to access all site capabilities (we strongly recommend Firefox for all platforms). Until further announcement, assigning weights to topics and the "drag and drop" features used while editing proposals do not work in Internet Explorer. We are working on the issue and hope to resolve it soon.

Technical update: A problem has been found in Safari as well. When you upload media files, Safari will not refresh the page properly. For the time being, if you must use Safari, you may need to click on a tab again to refresh. We are aware of the problem and are looking for a fix.

About the Michigan Student Caucus

The Michigan Student Caucus represents students throughout Michigan to the Michigan State Legislature. Since 2001, thousands of students across Michigan have participated in online deliberation, negotiation and voting leading to the construction of a political platform that is presented in formal testimony to the House Commission on Civic Engagement.

The Michigan Student Caucus is not affiliated with any political party or organization. The MSC is open to any Michigan resident (permanent or temporary) who is a student. For information about the program, please contact our faculty advisors at The University of Michigan, Professors Gary Weisserman and Jeff Kupperman.

Twice each year, MSC participants, including hundreds of high school and college students from around Michigan, present testimony about the MSC platform before the Michigan House of Representatives' Special Commission on Civic Engagement.

The following documents may be useful to you in getting started:

• The MSC archives from Winter 2010, Fall 2009, Winter 2009, Fall 2008 and Winter 2008. (You'll need to join the archived sites separately to view content.)
• The Winter 2009 platform (200 K, PDF format).
• The Fall 2008 platform (200 K, PDF format).
• The Winter 2008 platform (160 K, PDF format).
• The Fall 2007 platform (198 K, PDF format).
• The 2005-2006 platform.
• The 2006-2007 platform.
• Students taking this course for college credit at UM-Ann Arbor may download the DRAFT Fall 2010 syllabus for EDUC 362.
• Here is a presentation that was used during the orientation session to introduce the program (Google Docs).

Committee schedule:

The committee schedule will occur along the following schedule (topics schedule subject to change):

Economic Development & Community Revitalization (Econ Dev): Open brainstorming for resolutions begins on September 14, 2010 and ends on September 24, 2010; resolution construction begins on September 25, 2010 and ends on October 7, 2010; voting on submitted resolutions begins on October 8, 2010 and ends on October 15, 2010.

Arts & Culture (Arts): Open brainstorming for resolutions begins on September 20, 2010 and ends on September 29, 2010; resolution construction begins on September 30, 2010 and ends on October 12, 2010; voting on submitted resolutions begins on October 13, 2010 and ends on October 20, 2010.

Human Development & Welfare (Human Dev): Open brainstorming for resolutions begins on September 28, 2010 and ends on October 8, 2010; resolution construction begins on October 9, 2010 and ends on October 23, 2010; voting on submitted resolutions begins on October 24, 2010 and ends on October 30, 2010.

Environment & Health (Env & Health): Open brainstorming for resolutions begins on October 6, 2010 and ends on October 17, 2010; resolution construction begins on October 18, 2010 and ends on November 2, 2010; voting on submitted resolutions begins on November 3, 2010 and ends on November 10, 2010.

Justice & Equity (Justice): Open brainstorming for resolutions begins on October 14, 2010 and ends on October 25, 2010; resolution construction begins on October 26, 2010 and ends on November 12, 2010; voting on submitted resolutions begins on November 13, 2010 and ends on November 20, 2010.

Service schedule:

The service schedule will occur along the following schedule (schedule subject to change):

Fall 2010 (Service): Open brainstorming for service projects begins on September 14, 2010 and ends on October 9, 2010; construction of service proposals begins on October 10, 2010 and ends on October 26, 2010; participants may commit to a service project beginning on October 28, 2010 through November 4, 2010. Service projects will take place between November 4, 2010 and the end of the session, based on the dates identified in each adopted project. (Projects must be approved by the service chair and faculty advisors.)

Special events, such as expert chats, will take place regularly. Please check the latest news in the "updates" area.

All MSC participants are, of course, strongly encouraged to attend our hearings in Lansing, usually in December and April (dates TBA). Participants earning college credit in EDUC 362 (University of Michigan-Ann Arbor) or EDT 532 (University of Michigan-Flint) are expected to attend per course requirements.