Student Assembly passed legislation to create a Tentative Governance Council to foster better relations between student governance organizations on campus, during Tuesday night's Assembly meeting. The possibility of uniting the many student governance groups was one of the major topics debated during the recent campaign for the Assembly president.
The legislation calls for a first meeting between the heads of a number of student groups to more specifically delineate the role of the council. The groups that will send representatives to the first meeting include the Assembly, the Class Councils, Programming Board, the Council on Student Organizations, the Inter-Community Council and the Greek Leadership Council.
The legislation proposed calls for a preliminary Student Governance Council, where members from each organization will meet to "examine and agree on the structure and goals of the Student Governance Council."
"Originally, the legislation was much longer, but then we decided to have more of the decisions made by the actual council itself," Molly Bode '09, Assembly president, said.
Bode has already spoken to the leaders of the organizations involved and they are all willing to participate, she said.
The governance Council will be "a mechanism to increase communication on campus right now," Nafeesa Remtilla '09, Assembly vice president, said.
The idea to unify campus student organizations was first brought up in May 2007 after a task force, which had spent a few months studying the College's current student government organizations, suggested the creation of a "governance council," according to the legislation passed on Tuesday night. This suggestion led to the creation of the Special Programs and Events Committee in fall 2007. Despite the creation of this committee, the legislation states there is still a need for a group to provide communication between the organizations listed.
Students debated whether or not the Assembly should be moving to create a more centralized student government or simply create more communication between the existing groups.
"I would like to see that [the Assembly] is more focused on creating a centralized government," Tay Stevenson '10, a member of the Assembly, said.
Ruslan Tovbulatov '09, co-chair of the Student Life committee, disagreed, explaining that the Assembly does not "certainly know if that's the best thing for this campus."
The Assembly passed the legislation, agreeing to delay debate about the future goals of the council.
The Assembly also passed legislation in favor of putting the results from the recent housing survey on their web site, during Tuesday's meeting. The housing survey revealed that the majority of students across classes are dissatisfied with the new housing policy and believe that freshmen and seniors should be guaranteed housing. The majority of students also reported that they are not knowledgeable about off-campus housing.
According to Bode, the Assembly would like to be "as transparent as possible." The Assembly is still working with administrators on resolving the lack of sufficient housing on campus for next year, she added.
Prior to the General Assembly meeting, Assembly members hosted an ice cream social on the porch of Collis to encourage students who had not previously been involved in the Assembly to find out what it was about or to voice their concerns about campus life.
"Personal, one-on-one conversations are the best way to recruit members," Karen Doster '11, a member of the Assembly, said.
