ASUSU considers change in structure
After almost a decade of debate, this year’s Associated Students of Utah State University Executive Council hopes to be the group that comes up with a new design for the way student government works at USU.
In legislation introduced to the council at its weekly meeting Tuesday, seven members of this year’s council proposed what they would like to see as the way future councils operate.
The bill was moved to a second-reading legislation item, which means council members could ask questions of the sponsors but won’t debate or vote until the March 20 meeting. If it passes, it will require a change in the ASUSU constitution, which must pass a student vote.
“There is no problem with Executive Council, but there may be an opportunity for us to become more efficient,” said ASUSU Executive Vice President Rex Hansen, one of the bill’s sponsors.
Though responsibilities, especially in the realm of voting, would be moved around, the bill’s sponsors said the main goal is to improve the way student government works.
The way they want to alter the structure is not so much to alter power but to maximize officers’ abilities to perform their specific roles, said ASUSU President Ben Riley, another of the bill’s sponsors.
Currently, all members of the council, with the exception of the Val R. Christensen Service Center director and the administrative assistant, have speaking and voting rights in all proposed legislation that comes before the council. The council includes college senators and the various vice presidents.
These members are divided into three groups: programmers, legislators and senators.
The new structure would combine legislators and senators into one body – the Legislative Senate. That body would vote on legislative issues regarding amendments to or creation of university-wide policies and procedures, along with issues requiring representation from the entire student body.
The whole council would still vote on internal council issues, including budgetary issues and charter revisions.
The Legislative Senate would include all college senators, including the Graduate Studies vice president and Extensions vice president, both of whom would be renamed as senators. It would also include the Academic vice president and the Student Advocate vice president, neither of whom would have voting rights. It would be chaired by the executive vice president, who would vote only in the case of a tie.
Hansen said the vice presidents wouldn’t vote, because they are not in a strictly representative role, but would still be able to gather information relevant to legislation and write bills.
Riley said the issue of restructuring the council has been discussed for the past seven to 10 years, and he said last year’s council passed on a recommendation that this year’s council work on it.
One concern in the past has been that some students were represented more than once in the council, with both their college senator and a vice president or other officer also representing them.
ASUSU Student Advocate Vice President Bradley Bishop asked whether the new proposal really solved that problem, as Graduate Studies and Extension students are also part of a college, so they would be represented by their college senator as well as the Graduate Studies or Extensions senator.
But Riley said those students have unique and separate needs and are more likely to interact with the Graduate Studies or Extensions senator than with a college senator.
Another major change under the new bill is that the Public Relations vice president, currently a voting member elected by students, would become the Public Relations chair, a non-voting member of the council to be appointed by the president.
Riley said this was mainly because the Public Relations chair would be in a position of image consulting for the council, portraying the representative nature of the group to students and letting them know what officers are doing.
He equated it to USU Media Relations and Marketing Director John DeVilbiss, who he said spends a lot of time following President Kermit Hall around and letting the public know what’s happening at the university and with the president. Riley said a goal of restructuring the council is to make it more reflective of the way the university administration works.
But ASUSU Public Relations Vice President Marni Jenkins said the job involves more than just image consulting. She said it also includes relaying communication between the student body and the council, so the position should be filled by someone elected by students.
The bill’s sponsors said they will consider council members’ and others’ concerns or ideas as they draft the final bill, which will be discussed and possibly voted on March 20.