Council votes to amend ASUSU Constitution
ASUSU Executive Council passed a series of changes to the ASUSU constitution at its meeting Tuesday.
The council proposed the amendments at its meeting Feb. 7, and the student body will vote on the revisions during elections between Feb. 27 and March 1.
One major change reflects a change in the way graduate students are represented. The council voted on Jan. 31 to dissolve the Graduate Student Senate. This dissolution was a result of lack of student interest in senate positions and was meant to streamline the legislative process, said Cami Jones, Graduate Studies vice president.
All students will now be represented in the Academic Senate, in which undergraduate and graduate students can serve as senators for their respective colleges, Jones said. The Academic Senate will also contain one seat for a graduate student senator, she said.
The constitution changes will also provide more representation for regional campuses and distance education students, said Jordan Hunt, ASUSU administrative assistant. Formerly, the regional campus councils were appointed and represented in the USU main Logan campus by a single representative.
Under the revisions, the regional campuses and distance education students will vote for their own executive council which will represent all regional campuses and distance education students, said Justin Watkins, ASUSU regional campuses and distance education representative. He said he hopes to see higher voter turnout at the regional campuses’ election than at the Logan main campus election.
Under the revisions, the student judicial bodies of the Grievance Board, Student Court and Hearing Board will be combined under the Hearing Board. These bodies were formerly in charge of separate disciplinary and dispute resolution functions involving student elections, the student code and other areas of student conflict and discontent, Hunt said.
Another amendment changes the current title of the ASUSU position of Diversity vice president to Organizations and Campus Diversity vice president.
Current Diversity vice president Brooke Evans proposed this amendment because “some people are intimidated by the title. They don’t think they are cultural enough to run for the position, while most of the work I do is with clubs and other organizations,” she said at the meeting Feb. 7.
Many of the other amendments were purely superficial, Hunt said. Due to a recent software change, there were many formatting errors in the former constitution which was last updated in 2005, he said.
The new amendments also eliminate a good deal of legal jargon and other unnecessary wording, said ASUSU Executive vice president Kirsten Frank.
– rouchellebrockman@gmail.com