The Student Government Association met Wednesday morning and approved three changes to the SGA constitution.
The first modification dealt with procedures of the senate. Currently, no member of the senate is allowed to miss more than two meetings. If a senator misses more than three meetings, the General Judicial Council reviews their case. However, the modified amendment states that no member of the senate shall be able to miss more than two meetings without documentation of an unexpected and verifiable reason. This allows flexibility regarding sickness and emergencies. This update is similar to Pepperdine’s class attendance policies.
Second, SGA members debated over how to correctly phrase the qualifications needed to obtain the positions of Vice President of Administration and Vice President of Finance. Members agreed that students interested in either of these positions “shall have completed a minimum of 24 undergraduate units upon taking office.”
The final change addressed a gray area in the constitution concerning the rules governing SGA elections. The resolution passed states that write-in candidates running for senator must obtain a minimum vote count of 6 percent of class enrollment and write-in candidates running for president must obtain a minimum vote of 10 percent of class enrollment at the time of result verification. The reasoning behind this particular change is “to make it more clear and protect our constituents from having a leader they did not really choose,” General Judicial Council Chair Matthew Hibbs said.
In addition to the constitution changes, SGA members passed a resolution regarding funds for this year’s annual Senior Ball. Members agreed that the funding requested was “a little extravagant” and opted to revise the proposal. The revision stated that SGA will receive 70 percent of the total revenue of tickets sold and that students would volunteer to help work the event to eliminate costs.
