Summary of the Proposed Constitution
By: Tucker Gibbs, Phil Horrigan, Charlie Preston
Structure
The new StuCo will be made up of two bodies: the Assembly, and the Executive Board. This will function essentially as any sort of executive-legislative system, in which the Executive Board gets its powers from the Assembly. With this new system, there will be many more checks against executive power. The Assembly will approve funding and major policy changes, and just generally direct the executive and remove officials if they do not do their job. This is a great improvement to the current system, which has no checks, and the Executive Board is overburdened with all the responsibility of the PEA Student Government.
The Assembly
The legislative part of StuCo has much more authority in the new constitution. They will have to approve Presidential appointments, initiatives, and delegations of funds to ensure accountability and communication. The biggest difference though? Any interested student can vote in the Assembly. As we currently have it, there are 100 representatives mandated to represent 1000 students. The best way to accurately represent the students, if only 60 people show up to meetings, is just to give the people who care a vote. This is the Assembly. Class Reps will be a separate thing, whose primary purpose is to work on class events and the like.
Executive Board
Now, while the Assembly retains most powers, the role of the Executive changes very little in practice. What does change though is the officers and their roles. Now, currently, the President (or in this year’s case, co-presidents) have all the power- and all the burdens. There is a Vice President, but they have no tangible power. Then, we have the co-secs, who split the job of making agendas and taking minutes. It is clear that power is concentrated too heavily in the President.
Here's what this constitution will change:
President: It will be the job of the president to be the chief communicator between StuCo and the administration. Their purpose is to improve student life on campus through the creation of initiatives. This is super similar to their current job. However, we will remove a lot of the duties that hinder the execution of that purpose. Chief among those is removing their having to preside over Council meetings and setting the agenda. In addition, we can remove a few of their jobs such as StuCo’s anti-racist initiatives.
JEDI Director: Let’s talk about StuCo’s anti-racist work. It is impossible to believe that StuCo can do anti-racist work better than the affinity groups such as ALES, LAL, AV, and others that do amazing work to advance anti-oppressive initiatives. Much of the time, StuCo takes the administration’s time and attention from these clubs that will do so much more with it. For this reason, the new constitution will create the position of JEDI director, which will have the duty of having an active understanding of anti-oppressive work on campus, and be able to coordinate the resources of StuCo to aid the work the affinity groups do.
Treasurer: The current position of Budget Committee Co-head is already pretty much an executive position, as they have control over minor delegations of funds. The constitution would largely keep their role the same, but elevate it to the Executive Board to ensure that all proposals considered by StuCo are financially feasible.
Secretary: There is no reason why there need to be two co-secretaries. This constitution fixes that. It also ends the death grip the President has on the Agenda. Currently, the President and the rest of the Executive Board can ensure that no matters they do not like are discussed. That has to end and will end with this Constitution. The Secretary will have the duty of maintaining StuCo records, running the meetings of the Assembly, and ensure the constitution is adhered to.
Committees
Now let’s talk about committees. Where the actual policy of StuCo is supposed to originate. As it stands right now, the various committees have few members as their mission is far too specific. Why must there be a full committee for the running of the StuCo Instagram? This constitution will combine the committees into two, making them both incredibly efficient and active.
General Services Committee: The GSC will manage all the background aspects of StuCo, like social media management, technology support for initiatives, and policy creation.
The Student Life Committee: All of the other committees can be joined into one: Student Life. The improvement of student life is the primary goal of StuCo, and it should be treated as such. This committee will combine the planning of events, the creation of projects, and working on solutions to various problems that students face. (This committee would encompass Recreation, Mental Health, Dining Hall, and Student Life.)
And that’s it! A constitution doesn’t need to be a 26 page monstrosity, it can just be 7 pages. This will leave adequate ability for it to change and adapt to the changing requirements of StuCo. With this new system, we can ensure that StuCo can actually have an effect on people’s lives.
