Student Government Sen. Brett Atanasio presented a constitution for the new student government during the Senate meeting on Sept. 2.
This is the next step in replacing SG with the new AU Student Association.
SG members called for a new constitution because they felt SG had shifted its focus away from advocacy. The Senate voted on April 24 to begin reorganizing SG, The Eagle previously reported.
The new Student Association would consist of a Board of Representatives, which will replace the current senate. Under the Board of Representatives will be the president. Below the president will be four vice presidents for advocacy, programming, finance and communications, according to the proposed constitution obtained by The Eagle.
The school councils will be removed from the Student Association, according to the documents.
Instead, the school councils will work with the deans, according to committee member and Senator At-Large Joe Wisniewski.
The class councils will be replaced in part by a Senior Programming Board. The vice president of programming will elect members from the graduating class to the board, according to the documents. None of the other classes will have their own organization in the Student Association.
The committee chose not to include the other class councils, because many of the councils do not become active until senior year, when they focus on raising money for the senior class gift, Wisniewski said.
“It’s a more efficient system,” Wisniewski said.
SG will now work to gain the 600 students’ signatures needed to call for a referendum, the first step toward the special election needed to approve the constitution, Wisniewski said.
The transition to the new Student Association will be completed by the spring if students approve the constitution, said Atanasio, chairman of the Government Committee on Constitutional Review.
“Personally, I think that this is going to make the organization better,” Wisniewski said. “We desperately need this.”
Maddi Pariser contributed to this report.
hmongilio@theeagleonline.com
