By Jared Fields, Editor in Chief
The Students’ Association Congress tabled a bill to create an internal affairs committee Wednesday after an attempt to immediately take the motion from the table failed.
Freshmen Jeareme Mosley, Tony Godfrey and Jared Elk presented the motion in an attempt to create an ad hoc committee to investigate and check the actions of the SA Congress and Executive Cabinet.
The three answered questions about procedure as congress twice extended discussion for the bill before a third motion to extend discussion time failed. Then, sophomore senator Abby Barnes tabled the bill for a lack of concrete wording.
The motion passed, and Jared Elk promptly moved to take the motion from the table. After some confusion and more discussion, the motion failed and the meeting adjourned.
Although the meeting adjourned after 7 p.m., SA president Matt Worthington said the meeting went smoothly. Dr. Jeff Arrington, associate dean of campus life, spoke with congress about developing methods to best communicate with students.
“It went way smoother,” Worthington said. “Everybody came more prepared today.”
Arrington fielded questions and thoughts from congress on how to best inform students of different announcements, news and alerts the university might need to communicate.
In other discussion, Brenda Daniels, junior biochemistry major from Bogota, came before Congress asking for an international students representative position. Daniels stressed the point she was not asking for an International Students’ Association position, but just for a position for any international student.
Senior senator Nathan McKenzie also presented the idea of creating an SA chaplain position.
“In about 2 or 3 weeks I’m going to be bringing forward legislation to amend the constitution to bring this to reality,” McKenzie said.
Parliamentarian Matt Greenberg talked last week about the possibilities of amending Roberts’ Rule of Order and Wednesday’s meeting showed some signs of moving toward that goal.
“There are other sets of rules out there; still more informal but you still can conduct a meeting,” Greenberg said. “Maybe something better is out there.”
The parliamentarian said he and other SA members have discussed the issue amongst themselves and other universities’ congresses, and he said ACU is in the minority of schools who still use Roberts’ Rules.
