Courtesy of the Linda Lear Center for Special Collections and Archives
This week, two SGA resolutions will be put to a college-wide vote, where students will decide the future of student government and shared governance on this campus. Both resolutions—one proposing a new system for student representation on SGA’s General Assembly, and the other proposing that the SGA Executive Board position Chair of Equity and Inclusion become a Co-Chair position—passed General Assembly this past Thursday. Since they would be modifications to SGA’s Constitution, however, the student body must first vote in favor of any proposed changes.
Since the beginning of the semester, you may have heard about the Ad Hoc Committee on Student Representation Reformation’s work—the Committee has proposed a new system of student representation to replace our current House Senator system, which has been in place since 1988. Throughout the past year, former DEI Chair Aleks Eikinas ‘26 and DEI Committee Member Julia Mitchell ‘28 have also formulated the DEI Co-Chair resolution, which aims to combat the burn-out frequently experienced by DEI Chairs by alleviating the stress of the role, and allowing the Co-Chairs to represent a multiplicity of organizations and opinions.
The resolution on the new SGA system as per the Ad Hoc CSRR states that “the lack of House Senators elected to General Assembly in recent years has led to a breakdown of communication between SGA and the student body, and issues enforcing information accuracy and transparency.” It further points to the fact that “students for many years have been advocating for a change to the structure of SGA, so that it may better represent the student body both accurately and holistically, on multiple levels and in all aspects of the student experience.”
This resolution would replace House Senators with Residential Representatives, who, overseen by the Chair of Residential Affairs, would instead represent students and ResLife staff in the four different housing types: first-year, cross-year, upperclass, and independent living (or, the ‘Village’). To ensure multiple layers of representation, the Chair of Academic Affairs would also meet with representatives from the different general academic divisions: STEM, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Arts. Whole-class-year representation from Class Council looks a bit different as well. The council would consist of a President and Vice President, as well as any appointed representatives they choose to have, who would attend the General Assembly every week and send out SGA update emails, as current House Senators should be doing.
Importantly, the resolution stresses the gradual implementation of a club-based representation model. Alongside the above positions, the new system would have all Registered Student Organizations (and, on a voluntary basis, any non-RSO clubs) designate representatives who would meet in Club Representative Assemblies, once or twice a month, to discuss campus issues and SGA initiatives with each other, and the Chairs that oversee their respective groups. Alongside the Chairs, one ‘leader’ from each Assembly would come to General Assembly every week to represent the interests of the clubs within their Assembly. Because this system takes quite a bit of organizing and feedback, were the resolution to be passed, SGA would seek to implement it gradually over the next academic year.
The Co-Chair resolution for the Chair of Equity and Inclusion position would seek to elect the two candidates with the most votes to the position, who would then share the responsibilities of the Equity and Inclusion position, including managing the DEI Committee, the Opportunity and Equity fund, and participating in a multitude of different meetings and events with students, staff, and other members of the campus community.
“Having all this on one person’s shoulders is ineffective, and it pushes the idea that we have to go through such a long process to get anything done,” said Julia Mitchell ‘28, co-author of the resolution and member of the DEI Committee. “Having more than one person as Chair means the work is easier and more efficient within SGA and the DEI Committee, and working with different groups, different values, and outreach to student groups, who may feel that their needs have not been met, becomes possible.”
SGA President Adriana Manzano ‘28 said, “Two DEI chairs have stepped down in the past two years– not only would the resolution help prevent burnout, but if a Chair does burn out, we’re not leaving DEI unattended, and there’s someone in that role sustaining DEI on campus.”
In order for either resolution to be passed, and for the SGA Constitution to be changed, twenty percent of the student body must participate and vote in the referendum, and a majority must approve the resolutions. More information about both resolutions, and the text of each of them, will be available on ConnQuest when you vote. Otherwise, please feel welcome to reach out to myself or any other member of SGA if you have any questions.
Disclaimer: The author and editor, Theo Andres, is Chair of the Committee on Student Representation Reformation, which wrote and proposed the resolution on the new SGA system.
