"The primary goal would be to totally rewrite our constitution," said SGO Vice President Amy Summerville '02.
Among other issues raised last semester, many students complained about the SGO allocation of $2,500 to the crew team as well as the disorganization of student senate meetings.
A few students met informally over Interterm to write the charge of the ad hoc committee for SGO constitutional review. The proposed timeline for completion of the new constitution is Mar. 1, when the ad hoc committee will present the changes to the student senate.
Either two-thirds of the senate present or 10 percent of the student body must approve the new constitution for referendum by Mar. 25, before the new elections.
The SGO plans to schedule open forums for the student body to discuss changes to the constitution, the first of which is planned for next week.
"I think there are major problems with the constitution the way it stands right now … Our constitution has no provision for balance of power," said senate member Julie Babayan '03, who was also one of the students who met over Interterm to discuss changes for the constitution.
"In the current set-up, there are five branches that don't act together. They act independently," said Assistant Dean of Students Sam Haynes, who helped the students who met over Interterm to discuss problems in the current constitution.
SGO President Michelle Oliveros-Larsen '02 admitted that the structure of the current constitution is problematic. "A lot of the trouble we faced this year is trying to compensate for work that's left undone in previous years," she said.
The charge of the ad hoc committee passed with 22 assenting votes and six dissenting. The proposed ad hoc committee suggested the need for nine student senate members and a member from each class.
The senate elected eight SGO members to serve on the ad hoc committee. Babayan, Mike Flood '03, Stacey Kennard '03, Jun Matsui '03, Jay Gilliam '04, Dave Babbott '05, Christian Sanchez '05 and Dave Scherr '05. No seniors expressed interest in serving on the committee.
Some student senators felt that non-senators who expressed interest should also have the chance to serve on the ad hoc committee. "We can only get eight senators to invest the time it will take and we have a very interested [non-senator] student who wants to serve on this committee," said senate member Brad Coffey '04. "I think it's absurd to keep a student who is passionate about it and has been to most of the senate meetings during the year off the committee."
Other senate members said that they opposed non-senate members on the committee because the time frame in which to complete writing the new constitution is too short. "We felt like because we were under such a time crunch, in order to bring a non-senate member up to speed on how the SGO functions or doesn't function, it would take up time that we need to write the document," said Matsui, another student who worked during Interterm on the proposal for a new constitution.
"By having the open forum for all students next week … we will be able to gauge student opinion," Matsui added.
However, a non-senate member at Monday night's meeting disagreed with the SGO's decision not to allow non-senate members on the ad hoc committee. "There is a benefit when you're making decisions on how to reform a government to have people involved who are knowledgeable about the issues but are not directly involved in the way the government has run in the past," said Luke Swarthout '04. "I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a student voice on a committee composed of mostly senators looking into the questions of how the senate should act."
Members of the newly formed committee said that they are looking forward to starting the constitution-writing process. "I'm so glad we've finally formed an official ad hoc committee," said Matsui. "We've got so much work to do over the next month. I'm excited to be a part of such an interesting and hopefully rewarding process."
"The results will affect the way the SGO operates," said Haynes. "It really is an exciting time because I really think this will be a history point in student government."
Haynes said that the students who met over Interterm focused mainly on fact-finding. With Haynes' help, the group looked at the constitutions of other schools, including Harvard University and Williams and Swarthmore Colleges. He said that they found the SGO's constitution similar to that of Williams. "Ironically, during the middle of part of January, they just redid their constitution so we found that really funny," said Haynes.