A Retrospective on UW-Madison's 'Student Government' revolt of 2006 and how it relates to the current ASM Crisis

In April of 2006, a group of students emerged on the UW-Madison campus calling themselves 'Student Government' - a brilliant moniker, I must say - and looking to displace ASM, the Associated Students of Madison, the university's moribund student government establishment.


















The group found ASM's seeming implosion throughout the spring of 2006 to be the last straw. As I live-blogged at the time, multiple attempts at running a successful ASM spring election failed, putting the existing government - already notorious for low student participation and recognition levels, as well as high segregated fees - in a bind. It was questionable whether ASM would be able to continue to function based on realities and the strictures of the organization's own constitution imposing timelines for various electoral processes.

Student Government's leadership centered on a mixture of students - some with ASM experience, some without - including Steven Schwerbel, Sol Grosskopf, David Lapidus, and Erick Butzlaff. Others involved included Tim Schulz, Matt Weil, additional members of ASM, and Kelly Sanders at the outset. Schwerbel and Grosskopf, with their distinctive hats, became the faces and voices of the movement.



















The group declared ASM dead and called for meetings in the Stiftskellar adjoining the Rathskellar in the Memorial Union. Various campus media outlets opined on the venture. I wrote a supportive column. Basically, Student Government looked at the history and realities of ASM and realized that reform was not a viable option. A number of meeting were held with varying levels of turnout, but a notable media presence appeared, with such luminaries as Badger Herald Editor in Chief Mac VerStandig and Mikey Robinson, the paper's managing editor, in attendance at one event.





















Oddly, the Chair of ASM at the time, Eric Varney, as well as the outgoing SSFC chair, Janelle Wise, stopped by one meeting and enjoyed the spectacle with beers in hand.



















The group sought - and received - an audience early on with the Dean of Students, Laurie Berquam. Berquam later seemed to distance herself from the group.

The first rumblings of Student Government were, if I recall correctly, actually at my own home at the time, the Slanty Shanty down in the Greenbush. The first actual scheduled event/meeting for the group, however, took place in the appropriately underground 'Catacombs' coffee shop under the Pres House on Library Mall. I arrived at the very tail end of that first meeting as the members were packing up, and I noted the small orange origami bird on the table where the leaders had met - it had to be a phoenix, I said, a nice bit of symbolism about rising from the ashes.























Why did Student Government fail in its valiant effort? Discontent with ASM was wide-ranging. The far-left on campus, as evidenced by comments of Joel Feingold (of SLAC) at one SEC emergency meeting, was also fed up with ASM. The failure to bridge the gap and form a wider coaltion was one problem. The proximity to the end of the school year -and graduation for a number of figures involved - also prevented continuity and continued momentum. Some campus press, namely the Daily Cardinal, also painted the movement as "reactionary" and conservative - the seeds of reform sown were thus sown on hostile ground.

And yet the phoenix on the table in the Catacombs at the first meeting may have been a harbinger of things down the line.

Today, almost exactly two years later, ASM seems to have descended again to "rock bottom" by many accounts and indications. [More to come!]

|