By Katie Oglesby, News Editor
On Monday April 19, Senate met and primarily discussed the contents of five amendments, two of which were brought forth by the Inclusion Committee.
The first amendment, explained by Inclusion Officer Daniel Jones ‘22 would allow non-recognized clubs up to $800 in funding where they are now not allowed any funding from Senate. This launched debate amongst club representatives and members of the executive board over whether clubs would even register for Senate if they would still be able to receive funding or whether it would allow small clubs who might not have the membership to find someone to attend Senate meetings to receive funding they otherwise might not. This amendment was ultimately tabled, despite objection.
The second amendment, also brought forth by the Inclusion Committee, would increase the number of Senators in each class from four to five, decrease the number of at-large Senators from six to five, and increase the number of affinity group leaders from seven to fourteen.
Jones said this amendment came in reaction to a listening session he had where club representatives past and current “expressed…that they don’t feel like voting is proportional.”
Matt Walker ‘21 asked then why club representatives don’t have a vote in Senate, suggesting that might be the better reform, in his opinion. No one directly responded to that question and this amendment ultimately went back to committee for further deliberation.
The third amendment was introduced by Parliamentarian Lauren Browning ‘22. This amendment would define who is considered a voting member within a committee. Currently, the Constitution does not specify this, so this amendment would clarify a voting committee member as one who has attended committee meetings at least three times. This amendment was also sent back to committee.
Browning also introduced the fourth amendment about Senate recognized clubs. This amendment would strike down a clause in the Constitution that said derecognized clubs would not be able to receive recognition again until the next semester. By striking it down, they would be giving clubs the opportunity to be recognized again whenever they wanted to restart that process. This amendment was tabled.
The final amendment, again introduced by Browning, updated the duties of the president to include assisting the executive board in planning first-year extended orientation programming around Student Senate. It was tabled.
Since there are only two meetings left in the semester, any amendment that was sent back to committee won’t be passed this semester.
Senate ended with student concerns and committee reports. It will reconvene on Monday, April 26.
