Bijeta Lamichhane
Contributing Writer
The Student Government Association (SGA) has updated its constitution for the first time since 2011. Various members of SGA pointed out that updates to the constitution were overdue and that it has now been amended to be more beneficial to the campus community as a whole.
“SGA updated its constitution to better represent what the student body values and to reflect the College’s updated mission,” Monét Davis ’19, former president of SGA.
Some significant amendments have been made in order to make the constitution more inclusive, including the addition of they/them/their pronouns.
Furthermore, SGA has expanded their non-discriminatory statement, which ensures that every member of the SGA and the campus community is treated with regard. “If anyone within the organization discriminates against any senator or campus community member, their membership will be properly addressed,” Davis informed.
Davis also reported that SGA has now provided more detail to the description of the executive board positions as well. This will allow the members of SGA as well as the student body to understand the duties and responsibilities of each position, making SGA more transparent to the campus community in addition to being better functioning within its body.
Although these updates may seem to have occurred in a short period of time, the process has been ongoing.
According to Davis, the process to amend the constitution originally started with Margaret Sestito ’18, SGA president before Davis. “She led the constitution committee to begin revising the constitution and bylaws,” she said. “Then when I became President, I brought each section of the constitution to the senate for revisions and then for the revisions to be voted upon.”
Former Chair of Constitution & Rules Committee Grace O’Leary ’20 also shed some light on the process of revamping the constitution. “I organized meetings to discuss each section and work through possible edits,” O’Leary informed. “For example, we changed the election process under the constitution to push elections back a couple weeks to give more time for the Senate to work on projects during the actual school year.”
It was indicated that the new constitution is also a product of diligence and consistency. O’Leary reported issues with commitment from some members of the association in the initial stages of this process.
“The biggest challenge I have faced is getting interest from other Senate members to initially join the Committee,” she said. “A few members would come, but not many people wanted to spend extra time outside of regular Senate meetings.”
However, her statement concluded with a positive message. “Once we got into full Senate meetings a lot of people became invested in our policies and how they would impact us,” she said. “We got a good amount of the constitution edited under Monét Davis.”
The updated constitution also aims to assist members of the SGA to understand their roles better. “I think this update of the constitution will enable SGA to understand how to better serve the student body,” Davis concluded.
It was reported that the final vote on the SGA Constitution amendments took place on March 27, 2019. “It passed unanimously,” said Emilee McCubbins ’20, president of SGA.
While this is a commendable leap into inclusivity and progress, McCubbins reports that they have plans to bring additional updates. “As for the upcoming year, we will be focusing on updating our bylaws, which are not technically part of the constitution, but are related,” she concluded.