The SGA invites students to attend a town hall-style meeting on Feb. 8 to discuss the two bills that have been proposed to restructure the organization. The town hall meeting will be held in Hoosier Room East, from 1 to 2 p.m.
The two bills, “49-10 Constitutional Amendment: Elections” and “49-11 Student Ambassador Committee,” have been proposed to restructure the SGA in order to ensure equal representation.
“[Bill 49-10] basically takes our Senate and expands it from 24 to 28 seats,” Stephon Moore, journalism freshman, SGA press secretary and co-author of the bill, said. “It gives two seats to every school, two seats to undecided students, leaves six seats at-large, and leaves four seats open for incoming freshman.”
Moore said the deans from the different schools would nominate five students. The dean of student life would also nominate five undecided students.
Stephen Prather, radiology junior and SGA senate pro-tempore, said Bill 49-11 creates a compromise from what they have in place and what Bill 49-10 proposes.
“The bill proposes a student ambassador committee, where three people from each school would be representing their school on the committee,” Prather said.
The bills both carry certain advantages in ensuring greater accountability and individual school representation.
“If you look at the way our SGA is structured now, most senators aren’t elected,” Kevin Evans, secondary education junior and SGA vice president, said. “Over 60 percent of students on our senate weren’t elected. They are not representative of the student body.”
Evans also said deans need to talk to faculty members every day and have a sense of the students who belong to their school.
Josh Kornberg, communications senior and SGA president, said the deans may be biased toward nominating students with higher grades, but some SGA members view that as an advantage.
Matt Owen, political science junior, SGA senate chair and co-author of Bill 49-11, weighed in on the merits of the bill.
“[Bill 49-11] makes it easier for the schools to be represented in SGA because people don’t need to attend a meeting every week, they just need to be in contact,” Owen said. “It allows more people to get involved.”
Speaking on Bill 49-11, Kornberg said the big issue with this bill is that it counts on committees to resolve schools’ issues.
Kornberg also said this was a significant step for the SGA.
“The reason we don’t have people banging down our door to join SGA is because we don’t do anything of any significance that affects student body,” Kornberg said. “We don’t have anything to show. For the first time this year, we’re making strides, but we won’t if we count on committees to resolve the issues.”
The SGA members have acknowledged that with so many advantages and drawbacks associated with each proposal, it’s critical that the student body inform themselves about the bills and provide feedback.
“We know that this is something we need student input on because it’s so important to our organization,” Kornberg said. “We need students to know that we care about their opinions.”
By AMANDA BROWN
Staff
anb4@umail.iu.edu
