By Samantha Castro
Vice President of Undergraduate Student Government, and one of two Brooklyn College CUNY University Student Senate delegates, Ethan Milich, is nominated as Chairperson for USS.
“I care about the students. That is the first thing,” said Milich. “So, I want to focus on students. That is my number one priority.”
The Chairperson of USS is the leader of USS. They lead and guide all 50-100 senators, and interact with several other CUNY groups (i.e. Free Cuny, New York Public Interest Group, CUNY Rising Alliance.) Milich emphasizes that there are skills and experiences needed to take on the role.
“There’s inspiration and motivation, but there’s organizing and managing,” said Milich. “There’s like the head of state and head of government kind of fusing between that position.”
The chairperson of USS is the only student member of the Board Of Trustees, so they act as the voice of the students. If Milich were to be chairperson, he said that he wouldn’t be afraid of facing the board of trustees, but also believes that it’s important to be diplomatic and be respectful towards them.
“I can definitely disagree with the board of trustees whether we should raise the tuition, but I’m not going to scream at them and call them racist,” said Milich. “I’m going to discuss why they’re harming students and discuss why their choices are wrong.”
Milich spoke to WBCR about his two main agendas if he were to be Chairperson: legislative agenda and institutional agenda. His legislative agenda would be to create one bill to take to a state-level that addresses all the different issues that the USS wants to solve. Examples of issues include the tuition hike, closing the TAP gap (the amount that student’s pay for their tuition that TAP doesn’t fulfill), and free tuition. He credits the idea of creating the bill to Jay Hershenson, Vice President of Queens College and co-founder of USS. Hershenson articulated to the USS delegates about all these different “slogans” that are being thrown around. Milich wants to take all these slogans and put them into one bill that everyone can get behind.
If elected, his institutional agenda would mainly focus on strengthening the USS internally. He wants to rework the structure of USS because he believes the committees that exist and were made in the 70s don’t reflect the issues CUNY has currently. Another aspect he would want to change is the USS’s election timeline. He wants to move such elections before the semester so the USS actions can start sooner.
When speaking about institutional change Milich said, “it’s not the sexiest type of change.” He continued: “It’s something that like is fundamental to making us better to serve the students. We need to revitalize ourselves so we can revitalize CUNY, and hopefully maybe even revitalize all higher education within New York State.”
With all of his past experience navigating CUNY and helping restructure a whole student government, he believes that he’s the best fit for the position. Milich stated, “I want to continue doing what I do and continue carrying out what I’m good at which is bringing positive change.”