The task force, which is comprised of eight students with various levels of student government affiliation, was created by Assembly legislation and is charged with conducting an overview of all of Dartmouth's student government bodies - including the Assembly itself.
Though the task force is on schedule with the timeline established by the Assembly, it has yet to formulate specific recommendations for policy changes.
"We don't have any hard results yet," Task Force Chair Kapil Kale '07 said.
At Tuesday's meeting, task force members presented the General Assembly with a PowerPoint presentation outlining the research they have conducted so far and enumerated several of the key problems they have identified with current student government structure.
These problems included allocation inefficiency, a lack of publicity and no student group leadership training beyond that provided to group treasurers.
"We're taking a look from the perspective of student X, who has no idea what is going on in student government but knows that he or she wants programming, and that he or she wants advocacy, and the like," task force member Joe Kardon '09 said.
The task force members also raised the idea of putting a student representative on the College's Board of Trustees.
"We think this could be an interesting idea," Kardon said. "We do have a say in where the College is going."
Kale estimated that the task force's final report would be finished within three to four weeks, though he said he hopes that the group will have finalized their findings in time for the upcoming Student Assembly elections.
The members of the task force have examined the student governance systems at other institutions in an effort to gain ideas about how to improve Dartmouth's system, looking both at other schools in the Ivy League, in addition to several larger institutions.
Kale said the group has also been in "constant contact" with executives from the College's student governance groups, as well as several of the groups' faculty advisors and other administrators.
Student Body President Tim Andreadis '07 commended the group's actions thus far.
"They've done a really, really honest job," Andreadis said.
Andreadis said that he hopes the task force's final report addresses the issue of funding for various student governance groups.
"I do hope they can have an impact on [Undergraduate Finance Committee] allocation this year," Andreadis said, noting that the money allocated to groups can often be equated with the respective groups' power on campus. "If they can see that money is channeled to groups and activities that need it, that would be really good."
Assembly secretary Nathan Bruschi '10 also unveiled the Student Assemblog, a website which provides students with access to Assembly legislation and minutes, at Tuesday night's meeting. The website's presentation, however, was overshadowed by controversy surrounding the decision to include a video showing a female student punching a male student in the face while in the basement of Chi Heorot fraternity. The student keels over, hitting a pong table before meeting the floor.
The video was posted directly above a copy of College President James Wright's e-mail to campus about the Virginia Tech shootings.
Several Assembly members expressed hesitance at having the group associated with a video depicting violence.
The Assembly also approved legislation expressing support for the victims, friends and family of those killed in Monday's shootings at Virginia Tech at the meeting. The Assembly will be providing students with black ribbons to be worn in sympathy this week.
