Members of the 2007-2008 Student Assembly debated potential constitutional changes to elections, membership and funding at Thursday night's meeting. The Assembly, which is creating a new constitution after last week's release of the Student Governance Review Task Force report, aims to produce the document by next Tuesday's meeting.
Elections for Assembly secretary and treasurer, also held on Thursday, saw the election of Current Assembly Secretary Nathan Bruschi '10 as treasurer and Jen Argote '10 as secretary.
Over the last week, a group of Assembly members edited its constitution to reflect recommendations of the task force report, a document produced following last winter's controversy over student government efficacy. Thursday's debate centered around three more contentious proposals for the constitution, levied by Student Body President-elect Travis Green '08.
The sole change agreed upon at Thursday's meeting calls for Assembly elections to be moved to the third week of Spring term.
Green, who originally recommended that elections be held during Winter term, said that an earlier election cycle will allow for more institutional memory and provide for increased productivity.
"The reason I'm proposing it is that we can't start anything right now," Green said. "We're essentially the equivalent of lame ducks who are about to take power."
Other members of the Assembly shied away from moving elections to Winter term, citing traditionally lower numbers of students on campus in the winter and the inconsistency of such a schedule with Undergraduate Finance Committee funding.
Green additionally outlined a plan for merit-based promotion systems within the Assembly, recommending the training of some Assembly members to serve as "project managers." In return for their work, these students would also be given the opportunity to attend meetings of the Assembly executive board.
After extensive debate, this idea was dropped. Though many students said they supported an incentive system, several questioned the value of the system presented by Green.
Green's plan to change the Assembly's funding structure by creating a three-tiered system of allocation was similarly rejected by the gathered Assembly members.
Pointing to the inefficiency of debate over allocations during General Assembly, Green proposed a system in which the Assembly's committees could approve projects which required less than $500 in funding. The Assembly's executive board would have similar jurisdiction over projects which required less than $1000 in funding. All projects exceeding this limit would require discussion by the General Assembly.
Some students, however, worried that this system would put too much power in the hands of a few students.
"Doing this is taking away what SA is here for: to express student opinion," Harshil Shah '09, past chair of the Student Services Committee, said.
Shah underscored the importance of the Assembly's efforts to revise the constitution.
"We've got to keep in mind that this constitution is going to be in place, hopefully, 20 years down the road," he said.
The proposed constitution will require a three-fourths vote of the Assembly's voting membership in order to be ratified.
