Jay’Mi Vazquez- Managing Editor
The Student Government Association, SGA, is making changes to its constitution for the first time in seven years.
Traditionally, the constitutional review process happens every five years, but due to COVID the process took an additional two years.
There are multiple changes being made regarding student organizations and clubs, all of which go through SGA and the Office of Student Involvement.
Vice President of the Board of Outreach and Communications and the SGA Pierce Kozlowski, a sophomore said SGA represents the interests of the student body.
The goal of the constitution is to dictate how effectively SGA can represent the interests of students on campus.
“So, things that would make that process easier for organizations, like removing problem areas and things that cause confusion is what the constitutional review process is designed to tackle,” Kozlowski said.
One of the biggest changes made to the constitution is the replacement of the Student Activity Fee Allocation Committee with the new Board of Finance.
“Since SGA spends so much time focusing on funding for clubs, we want to prioritize the funding process by having a having a board oversee it instead of a committee,” Kozlowski said.
Kozlowski said that boards are more significant and demonstrate a priority over a committee since the boards represent different features of the student experience.
“We want to show that money is more of a priority and how we oversee that rather than just having it be a standing committee,” Kozlowski said.
Historically, there was no limit on how much a club could ask for in a funding proposal. However, a new change in the constitution is that proposals that exceed $5,000 must be voted on by the entire SGA.
Even though large amounts of money are rarely proposed, this change was made to prevent big decisions being approved by a small group of people, Kozlowski said.
“We want more eyes on that. So, it actually democratizes the decision making and prevents monopolies,” Kozlowski said.
Another change made is the change of the name “class government” to “class council.”
SGA Representative William Moroz, a sophomore, said this change was made to prevent confusion between the differences of class government and student government.
“Class council has a seat at student government meetings, but they can’t really vote,” Moroz said. “But with the change, it makes them a priority at meetings, so there is better communication between the class council and student government.”
To make these changes final, 15% of the undergraduate student population, which is 747 people, must sign off on the constitution for it to go to the Office of Student Involvement. From there, a voting process will begin, and undergraduate students will be able to vote on all the changes made once they are approved.
To gather signatures, SGA has been tabling every day until they get the number of signatures needed from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Adanti Student Center and Engleman Hall.
“It’ll probably go through mid-April, possibly slightly earlier,” Kozlowski said. “The voting process is something we’re going to do over OwlConnect because historically that’s where SGA holds a lot of major proposals.”
