Student government seeking 1/3 student body vote for Constitution amendments

The Student Government Association (SGA) is proposing two amendments to their Constitution, requiring 1/3 of the student body to vote on them in order to pass.

The first amendment aims to “allow members of the Cabinet to hold or retain officer positions in any other formally constituted campus organization,” meaning that students would be able to simultaneously hold an e-board position in a student organization while also serving as an SGA Cabinet member. 

Reasons for this change include “a lot of the best candidates for the SGA Cabinet are students who are very involved on campus and know a lot about how Stevens’ student organizations run” and “since our terms align with the calendar year and most other organizations align with the academic year, this often creates an issue that there are students who would like to join the SGA Cabinet, but in order to do that would need to resign from their e-boards in the middle of their term.”

The second amendment aims to change “the quorum requirement for referendums of proposed amendments to the SGA Constitution from one-third of the Student Body to five percent of the Student Body.” Currently, 1/3 of the student body at a population of 3,791 is 1,263 students. At 5%, only 190 students would be needed to pass amendments. 

In an email to undergraduate students, the SGA stated that “with the current quorum, it is nearly impossible to make any changes. By decreasing the quorum we are hoping to allow future SGA officers to be able to make necessary and appropriate changes. Five percent of the undergraduate student body is the current number of nominations a presidential ticket needs to receive in order to move to the voting stage of elections. We feel as though it is an appropriate number of votes for constitutional changes as well.”

In January 2021, the SGA went through a similar process of seeking 1/3 of the student body to vote on a completely new Constitution, which failed to pass after lack of student participation in the voting process. With the current voting portal only being open until November 22, it is unclear if the amendments will be passed.

Students can vote for the constitutional amendments at this link.