Student Government Organization (SGO) President Steve Ruckman '01 announced, "The executive council is preparing to recommend changes to SoCo and the Program Board."
"As it is," explained SGO Treasurer Ben Armour '01, "SoCo is a top-down organization. For the most part, the executive council makes the decisions, and they tell their officers, whom the executive council appoint, then they tell the general membership. We're thinking of suggesting that the officers are elected by the general membership, and the executive council is selected from the officers."
"How does this change the fact that SoCo is made up of predominantly the same group of people?" asked Steve Vladeck '01.
"We hope that the election system will increase accountability to the general membership and to the student body," said SGO Corresponding Secretary Amy Summerville '02. "If everyone has a chance to run, then the argument that SoCo is always the same group of people would not hold up."
The elections, Summerville added, would be open to all students.
Several students agreed that the change would resolve some of the major concerns about SoCo.
"Open elections could eliminate the need for having required SoCo seats for affinity groups," said J. Ashley Ebersole '01. "They could go and run on their own volition. If they wanted to, affinity groups could even go to the meetings and take over SoCo."
"I was on SoCo for three years," said Adam Lessler '01. "When I was a freshman, we made a major push for the general membership concept, but each meeting usually ended up being just the SoCo executive board and one or two people."
"Currently SoCo's cosponsorship is really just a piggybank," said Summerville. "They're almost a second [Student Finance Committee]. It's not an efficient use of them. We want them to plan more programming, because that's why they exist."
On the topic of the Amherst College Program Board (ACPB), Ruckman said that the band selected for the spring concert, Run DMC, recently backed out prior to signing a contract and "ACPB is clamoring to find a replacement act on such short notice."
"We got canceled by Run DMC?" said Jake Kaufman '02.
In other business, the senate discussed the role of first-year senators-at-large and the Information Technology (IT) help desk.
Jun Matsui '03 introduced an amendment to the SGO constitution that would require first-year senators-at-large to complete or contribute to at least one SGO project per semester. The amendment passed unanimously.
In a report from the IT committee, Arthur Lord '03 said that the IT help desk has recently codified their policies. "Lots of students have been unsure as to what technical support at Amherst entails. Because of the variety of systems, they can't provide service to everyone here." He added, "The IT help staff is devoted mostly to helping faculty and staff."
"I don't mind if they're overworked. I understand that," said Vladeck. "I don't mind if they're here for faculty and staff. I understand that. I want to know what they are for us. I think students should know that the IT help desk is not their IT help desk."
The senate discussed sheepskin use in diplomas. Noah T. Winer '01 presented a resolution suggesting that the default material for diplomas be paper instead of sheepskin.
Vladeck suggested that neither material should be made default and that all seniors be required to choose.
"I agree that it would be best if there were no default. Everybody should choose for himself," said Winer, adding that he would amend the resolution for a later meeting.