On December 14, 2020, the Student Government Association (SGA) set forth a new constitution. This constitution was set to pass upon receiving a 2/3 vote of approval from at least 1/3 of the undergraduate student body. However, there was a lack of student participation in the voting process, resulting in the newly-written constitution’s failure to pass. The SGA must now move forward with its current constitution.
According to E.J. Hannah, SGA President, this new constitution “has been an ongoing process for several years now,” since the current constitution was passed in 2016. For years, the SGA has expressed wishes for a new constitution through brainstorming and collecting many “long standing ideas.” However, as Hannah explained, “the actual writing of this new constitution began halfway through this past fall semester,” as the previous Cabinet resigned, and a new one was elected. The newly-elected SGA Cabinet assembled an informal “restructuring committee” to write the new constitution. This committee mainly consisted of Cabinet members, Senators, and any students that expressed an interest in bettering the organization.
The new constitution was meant to serve as a building block for an increase in student involvement within the SGA, demonstrating a more democratic election process. It was also set forth in order to fix some of the faults within the current constitution. Members of the SGA have found that the current constitution “has a handful of shortcomings,” as stated by President Hannah. “The restructure committee was looking to resolve many of these shortcomings and modify the constitution to better align with our values.” The new constitution was meant to support aspects such as ranked-choice voting, representation of alternate Senators, and more democratic elections. Through implementing such facets, President Hannah noted that “the new constitution was aiming to increase student engagement, transparency, and streamline our overly bureaucratic workflow.”
However, the constitution did not get passed — an occurrence that Hannah attributes to overall low student body participation in SGA affairs, especially during winter intercession. “To encourage students to engage with their student government during winter break is quite challenging,” stated President Hannah. Within the population of students that voted, there was an overall vote of approval that surpassed the 2/3 needed. 270 undergraduate students voted, with 73.2% in favor. This indicates that the constitution was on its way towards approval if only 1/3 of the undergraduate student body participated in the voting process.
Moving forward, the SGA plans to follow the old constitution comprehensively and plans to thoroughly heed all of its rules despite wishes to implement new ones. The SGA does not plan on completely erasing restructuring efforts, however. It is still an option to modify the bylaws of the constitution to include a new code of ethics. This provides a way to abide by the old constitution, yet sustain imperative changes that are meant to better the organization. The SGA also intends to move forward with elections for a new Cabinet; Hannah said, “We are hosting a presidential election in the coming weeks to allow a new Cabinet to take the reigns and continue to help the organization grow.”
Even though the new constitution failed to pass, the SGA hopes to continue efforts to pass it sometime in the future, putting in place new ideas to get votes, and incorporating critiques from students. President Hannah stated that “the goal is to implement the new constitution at a time where more students are connected to their community on campus,” hopefully increasing the number of voting participants and enabling the passage of a new SGA constitution.
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