By Jonathan Smith, Editor in Chief
The Students’ Association voted down an amendment to the bylaws that would have increased the required grade point average from 2.5 to 3.0 to run for an executive officer position.
The amendment, which would have needed a two-thirds vote from Congress, fell 20-23 with two abstaining. Senators Casey Bingham, sophomore political science major from Conroe, Brandon Smith, freshman political science major from Keller, and Missy Mae Walters, senior political science major from Abilene, presented the amendment as a way to increase the academic standards of executive officers.
“SA takes a lot of work,” Smith said. “We don’t want to put people in a position where they have a 2.5, 2.7, GPA going into their senior year.”
However, some members questioned what raising the required GPA to run for executive office.
“One of the missions of SA is to get people involved,” Jeremy Gudgel, chief financial officer and sophomore accounting major from Andrews. “Raising it would make the requirements a lot harder and it would make it more elite. Just because someone has a 2.5 GPA doesn’t mean they can’t do the work.”
Some contended that GPA says something about the character of the candidate.
“If you’re going to be an executive officer, you need to be one that has a hard work ethic and a good work ethic,” said Tyler Cosgrove, executive treasurer and junior finance major from Amarillo. “If your GPA is below a 3.0, I am going to question your work ethic.”
Smith said there has not been a problem with executive officers with GPAs lower than 3.0 in recent history, but some still questioned the proposal.
“I wonder about the necessity of this bill,” said Jeff McCain, junior integrated marketing and communication major from Liberty. “The students know how to pick leaders, they know how to pick people who know what they’re doing.”
Representatives from Healing Hands International attended the meeting to receive the donation made by students after Chapel on Monday for the relief effort in hurricane-stricken Haiti. Students raised $3,880.57 to send with missionaries to Haiti to buy food and water for the people who lost most of their possessions in the hurricanes.
Congress also voted to support and affix its seal to letters written by the International Justice Mission in a letter writing campaign.
IJM will be writing letters to the parent company of several fast food franchises in Honduras in protest of the company’s illegally firing of many of employees.
