By Jonathan Smith, Editor in Chief
The Students’ Association twice voted to amend its bylaws and approved guidelines for a student leadership scholarship Wednesday in one of Congress’ most productive meetings of the semester.
After executive officers prepared members for a potentially marathon meeting, Congress-in near unanimous agreement on most of the measures-bypassed lengthy debate and moved quickly to votes.
The need to amend SA’s bylaws arose when executive treasurer Tyler Cosgrove sought to appoint Rep. Keith Robinson, Mabee Business Building, as chief financial officer-one of the administrative officer positions-after Jeremy Gudgel resigned earlier this semester.
However, SA’s constitution and bylaws prohibit members of Congress from seeking more than one office in the same academic year, even if they resign their first position.
“According to our bylaws and constitution, Congress cannot appoint Keith as the chief financial officer,” said Elizabeth Alvarez, chief development officer.
Alvarez said amending the bylaws to specifically lay out the job descriptions for each administrative officer, something that was never done when Congress created those positions two years ago, could allow Robinson to resign his position as representative and be appointed as CFO.
Freshman Sen. Brandon Smith presented the amendment to the bylaws, laying out the positions of administrative officers that would allow current members of Congress to resign and fill an open position. Most of these rules were written when the positions were created two years ago, but Congress ran out of time before adding them to the bylaws. This year’s administrative officers have been operating under these rules already.
An amendment to the bylaws takes a two-thirds vote of SA, and Congress surpassed that mark by two with a 37-1 vote.
With the bylaws amended, Congress accepted Robinson’s resignation as a representative, and the executive offices can now appoint him as CFO.
Congress also amended the bylaws in a unanimous vote to give executive and administrative officers the option of receiving a scholarship or paycheck as compensation for their work.
Congressional bylaws specifically stated officers would receive a scholarship for their position. However, officers who already had full-tuition scholarships could only use that to repay loans and had no flexibility in how they wanted to use their pay.
Rep. Jeremy Pond, Mabee Hall, said this amendment would give the officers needed flexibility in how they could use their compensation.
With the bylaws amended, Congress accepted Robinson’s resignation as a representative, and the executive offices can now appoint him as CFO.
Congress also amended the bylaws in a unanimous vote to give executive and administrative officers the option of receiving a scholarship or paycheck as compensation for their work.
Congressional bylaws specifically stated officers would receive a scholarship for their position. However, officers who already had full-tuition scholarships could only use that to repay loans and had no flexibility in how they wanted to use their pay.
Rep. Jeremy Pond, Mabee Hall, said this amendment would give the officers needed flexibility in how they could use their compensation.
Once amended, officers now have the option to receive their compensation as a semesterly paycheck.
Congress also revisited and unanimously passed guidelines for a student leadership scholarship tabled at Nov. 17’s meeting.
At the last meeting before Thanksgiving, members could not agree if the requirements for the scholarship should specify that the candidate never have been arrested. Some felt Congress should set high standards for those it gives money to, although others thought this requirement would be too limiting for otherwise-qualified candidates.
Junior Sen. Sarah Carlson presented the amended version of the guidelines that now state applicants must not have been convicted of a felony or class A misdemeanor, instead of just being arrested. The scholarship committee was also specifically given the right to have some freedom in considering if an applicant met the guidelines.
