By Paul A. Anthony, Editor in Chief
In a shocking reversal, the senior class officers stood down in their battle with Students’ Association president Jeremy Smith and presented a compromise that led to the passage of a one-semester trial period for Smith’s plan to reorganize Congress.
Senior class senator Elliott Pittman told Congress the officers had agreed to support the trial period if class officer roles would remain the same and if a committee to evaluate voting member roles was created for next semester.
“In talking to Congress, I found out that most of the Congress wanted that,” Pittman told the Optimist. “I felt confident with the compromise that we made.”
After hours of debate over the past several weeks about the plan to shake up Congress, the trial period proposal is radically smaller than the original “big shake-up” presented before Congress last month: only two provisions constitute a change from official SA policy.
* Committee budgets will be eliminated. Every student group on campus would be allowed to submit a budget proposal to the Appropriations Committee before the start of the semester.
* Only the chair of an SA committee will be required to attend SA meetings. Currently, all committee members are required to attend.
The rest of the provisions call for encouraging student groups to send representatives to meetings, but all students are part of SA and are officially invited to every meeting and make announcements before Congress.
Gone is the plan to organize all student groups into categories that would fall under the loose supervision of a Campus Life administrator. Instead, the compromise allows for “encouragement to consult with other campus offices,” which is what some committees have been doing for months already.
“That’s what we wanted,” Pittman said on behalf of the senior class officers. “I don’t think anyone can argue that these are bad things.”
Smith said he spoke with those who had voted no for the trial period and gained their support by clearing up confusion created during discussions on the Senate floor.
“Ninety-nine percent of Congress is on the same page,” Smith said. “Next semester, we’ll take some big steps and have a real student government.”
The temporary committee to explore and evaluate the role of voting members was formed by Pittman and is scheduled to propose a Constitutional amendment by Feb. 26.
The new trial plan passed 38-2 with one abstention.
Congress also rejected an appeal by the industrial technology honor society to grant all of a $160.67 request. The Appropriations Committee had granted $100 of the request. The Student Request Fund finishes the semester with $407.07 remaining out of $28,000 total.
