SGA Report | Tentative date set for student vote on new constitution
Current SGA plan marks Feb. 27 as the target date for a student vote on the marquee project.
On Sunday, the Student Government Association (SGA) held its second meeting of the semester. President Taylor Dashney issued an executive order that dedicated all future SGA meetings to the review and completion of the new SGA constitution outside of ISR requests. With only three ISRs in legislation and the rest of the meeting spent in executive session for constitution review, no reporter from The Collegian was present.
Vice President Josh Kennell provided a short summary of Sunday’s meeting along with some insight into the current timeline expected for the constitution.
To open the meeting, the SGA reviewed three ISR requests before promptly beginning work on the constitution. The group met from 7 to 8:30 p.m. and will meet again this week to continue reviewing the document.
The group aims to vote on the constitution amongst themselves on Feb. 19. Assuming this goes to plan, it’ll be presented to the student body on the 20th. This is when the students will be able to read it for the first time.
“We’re being sort of secretive,” Kennell, a junior from Newton, said. “Just because we’d like to have a chance to discuss it among ourselves before we have input from outside.”
The SGA may provide information sessions for the student body to attend and learn more about the changes that have been made to the constitution. Provided that there’s no opposition, students will be given the opportunity to vote on the new document on Feb. 27.
“If there is opposition or people aren't happy with it, or they want certain things added, then we can push that back,” Kennell said. “We’re not really expecting it to be controversial, but it might be and that’d be fine. You know, we’d make changes … but we would legitimately enjoy student input and if they have any thoughts or ideas [we encourage them] to share them.”
Comments and concerns can be taken directly to senators or to the SGA’s anonymous feedback form — which can be found on the SGA website.
So far, this form has been a valuable point of connection between SGA and the student body as 14 total complaints have been issued through it since the beginning of last semester. The SGA receives these messages instantaneously and relays them to the appropriate channels or addresses them immediately.
Elections are also coming up in the two weeks following spring break. Senator positions for every class are up for voting as well as the President-Vice President pair. The ability to run for these positions is open to all students who are in good standing with the college.
The next SGA meeting will take place on Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. in the WAC, room 203. Most of the meeting will be held in executive session.