G reen Mountain College’s student governing body, Student Senate, is working to replace the Student Assembly with a committee to make its process more efficient.
“We have a problem that many club representatives do not show up at Student Assembly meetings,” the Student Senate president, Jose Galvez Contreras said.
Student clubs’ representatives meet at the weekly Student Assembly meeting to approve new clubs and organizations and to decide the status of club and organization activities.
As part of the student governing association, Student Assembly is responsible for implementing student activities and events on campus.
To make more clubs show up at the Student Assembly, financial sanctions have been imposed on clubs who missed the meeting more than once.
“If a club is absent three or more Assembly meetings, the Student Assembly will deduct 10 % of the club budget,” a Student Assembly representative, Oz Skinner, explained.
However, “As the same person can not make it every meeting, according to the current Assembly structure, the attendance has never been consistent.” Contreras said.
“To make the process more efficient and consistent, we are planning to revise the constitution of the student governing body so that we can form a committee under the Student Governing Association, where selected club representatives along with Student Senate’s representative and the student financial officer can work together as the committee members,” Contreras explains.
If the revised constitution is approved, the new committee will be formed to take the responsibilities the current Student Assembly holds.
According to the current constitution, hearing new club/organizations proposals, deciding the approvals, and taking in charge of the finance funded for the student clubs, and activities, are done at Student Assembly.
The last time the Student Governing Association’s constitution got revised was in spring, 2008.
