More than 50 people showed up for Student Government’s two-day constitutional convention last week, and half of them weren’t even part of SG. They were regular students, and they were angry.
“After hearing and reading about all the corruption I wanted a system in place to represent all students,” said senior Dominic Aloia, an accounting major. “That’s why I’m here.”
SG has been the subject of controversy the last few months, beginning with botched elections over the summer and culminating in the resignation of President Kirk Murray. Newly appointed Student Body President Austin Shaw said he hopes the constitutional rewrite will be the first step in gaining back students’ trust.
SG officials, students and administrators discussed changes in SG’s elections code, structure and budget process (see Proposed Changes). After more than 13 hours of work, the group came up with a partial draft of the new constitution – the first step in a process that won’t be completed until March (see Approving the Constitution).
“This is educational for our students,” said Vice President of Student Affairs Charles Brown, one of many administrators who attended the convention. “Their voices are being heard.”
The effort was aimed at making SG’s constitution, which Brown said was “probably the worst in the state,” easier for students to understand and more consistent with state laws.
“No one has been happy with it,” said University Wide Controller Michael Hallenstein, a convention attendee. “They’ve been trying to rewrite the constitution for years without success.”
So what’s different now? Administrators and students agree that controversy surrounding SG had a lot to do with it.
“I think this was able to happen because of everything that went on,” Boca Senator Stacey Chait said. “This has really been a chance to unify.”
Joe Isadore, assistant dean of students for the northern campuses, says the opportunity was right because of the new president. “There’s a new commitment to helping the students.”
The last time SG’s constitution had a major overhaul was back in 1995. Isadore said that rewrite moved SG from one campus in Boca to all of FAU’s main campuses. He hopes this rewrite will streamline SG.
“This has really gotten students thinking about what SGA should look like,” said Brown, who was pleased with the weekend’s progress.
While there were a few heated moments of discussion over the line of succession and the preamble to the constitution, Shaw was surprised at how smoothly the process went. “I’m a realist and a skeptic, and I thought we were going to have major personality conflicts.”
“I’m really impressed with the maturity,” he said. “I didn’t hear one personal attack. I didn’t hear one reference to the past.”
Approving the Constitution
Creating a draft is just the beginning of the rewriting process. SG’s new constitution will have to be approved at many levels before it goes into effect.
? By Jan. 15, a draft will be sent to Vice President of Student Affairs Charles Brown and the general council, FAU’s lawyers, for approval.
? The UWC – a panel of SG’s top leaders from each campus -and all four of SG’s campus senates must also approve the document.
? In February, Brown said they plan to hold a town hall-style meeting on each campus to get the input of students.
? And finally, in March it will have to be ratified by the student body and approved by FAU’s Board of Trustees and President Brogan.
Proposed Changes
During the two-day conference, students and SG officials split into groups to focus on different parts of the constitution. They brainstormed, haggled over details and wrote part of the document’s language. If all the changes they discussed are made, both SG and its constitution will strongly resemble the U.S. system of government. Here are a few changes they proposed:
?Legislative branch: Disband the UWC – a panel of SG’s top leaders – and create a senate with two representatives from each campus. However, this was a point of contention because some students felt two people weren’t representative enough of a whole campus. But they did agree on creating a house of representatives on each campus made up of elected students. This system, like the U.S. Congress, balances equal representation with proportional representation. But, unlike the U.S. Senate, SG’s senate would meet rarely and would be the weaker of the two chambers.
?Executive branch: Get rid of most of the presidents’ and governors’ cabinets and delegate more power to each campus. The vice president would chair the senate, only voting in the case of a tie – just like the U.S. Senate. The biggest contention in this area was the line of succession. Everyone agreed that it should change but not on how it should be. Currently if there is a vacancy in any of SG’s top positions, everyone is forced to move up. This issue was hotly contested in wake of the recent resignation of Student Body President Kirk Murray and the position shuffling that had to take place. Both Kim Nguyen and Rocky Joarder, who moved to vice president and Boca governor, said that if they had a choice, they wouldn’t have moved up.
?Judicial branch: SG currently has a system that uses a paid chief justice and four associate justices, one from each of FAU’s main campus groupings. They talked about creating a supreme court and involving student jurors in the cases.
?Elections: It took almost 100 days to elect a president after a controversial set of elections this past summer. With three elections, a string of contestations, student court cases and threats from the administration to withhold funding, reforming SG’s election codes were a priority. One idea was having elections run by Student Affairs. Another was holding elections twice a year, once for the executive and the other for the legislative.
Now that partial drafts of the document are done, the next step is to create one “cohesive document,” Vice President of Student Affairs Charles Brown said. In the coming weeks small “task forces” will finalize the details, focusing on different aspects such as the elections code or budget process.
