BRITNEY MALONEY
News Assistant
The SGA senate will soon be voting on the type of senator that will make up its council.
The new resolution proposes having housing representatives broken down by living area, four class senators and a class president, rather than each class having a president and eight senators.
The resolution suggests that one senator represent about every 200 students.
In that case, the housing representatives would consist of two for upper dorm road, two for lower dorm road, two for Towers, two for Greek Row, one for Lovernich, one for Drescher and four for off campus.
Ryan Harvey, SGA general judicial director, is leading the committee to install the senate adjustment.
“The purpose of this change in the senate structure is to add to the proportional representation of students,” Harvey said at Wednesday night’s SGA meeting. “Under this structure we will have the class senators focusing on the class and the housing representatives focusing on residential needs.”
For the new configuration to come into effect by fall 2006, the proposition must be passed by SGA and the student body.
Freshman Senator Manelay Guitierrez said the new structure would be advantageous because living with one’s constituents means directly understanding their needs.
The senator elections would occur in the fall, once students know where they will be living.
The idea is still facing hesitancy.
“Instead of installing a new system, RAs and SLAs could report questions or issues monthly,” junior Sen. Trent Allen said. “RAs and SLAs already submit weekly reports, so another possible solution is for them to be better connected with HCL.”
“It wouldn’t be as effective to have RAs monthly submit concerns to SGA even though it would be easier,” Harvey said in response. “I am an RA. I know that it is a big job. In this sense you let the RA do his or her job and you have a housing senator that focuses solely on that.”
Other SGA officers were concerned with how well the off-campus senators would be able to represent their constituents.
“If the off-campus students don’t have an interest in SGA, then we won’t hear from them,” Harvey said.
“Senators will be getting more feedback because they will be seeing their constituents on a daily basis and more regularly,” SGA President Leon Dixson said in favor of the motion.
The senate will be voting within the next few weeks and if it passes, the motion will be presented to the student body.
01-19-2006