On Oct. 10, the Student Government Association (SGA) voted 9-3 to change their election cycle from November to April. Students will now choose in the spring semester the president and 22 candidates to represent them for the following academic year.
After two weeks of heated discussion between sitting and former representatives, 12 of the 18 voting members currently on SGA attended the Oct. 10 general assembly on the third floor of Haas. Surpassing the approval of two thirds of the attendees by one vote, the motion passed. As a result, sitting members’ terms will extend until this spring’s election.
Karlee Makely ‘19, president of SGA, believes this is a step in the right direction, noting that it will encourage seniors to run for the entirety of their final year instead of having to resign in the middle of their term, and give members the summer to plan for their upcoming year.
“We’re hoping that we’ll get more competitive elections and we’ll stop having so many special elections,” said Makely. Special elections are held when SGA members elect new representatives from a pool of applicants to fill vacancies.
“We found that almost every year we are replacing around half of our members in early September upon the beginning of the academic year. Whether this is attributed to members graduating, deciding to go abroad after being elected or just losing interest in between years this problem must be addressed,” stated SGA in an e-mail to the student body and a Facebook post explaining the vote.
Discussion of changing the election cycle has been in the works since as early as last school year, according to both Maekly and Steve Dutton, faculty advisor for SGA. The change was passed by the SGA Standards board and approved by Dean of Students Allison Gulati, in addition to being discussed at two general assemblies held on Oct. 3 and Sept. 26.
“Every time we would get momentum of making some real positive changes to the campus, we would find ourselves having to replace half of the general body,” said Dutton. “And before we would need to get back into those issues we would have to orient them to student government, our policies, our procedures, and without context some of these issues that we’d been talking about to move forward.”
The past two fall semesters SGA had to replace 11 of their 22 members and began this semester with eight vacancies, four of which remain open.
The SGA rules require any change to its bylaws to be announced to students two weeks before a vote. Because the November 2018 election was approaching and campaigning would soon begin, the rule was suspended. Instead, the students were notified only five days before the vote, three of which were over fall break.
“In this sense it was a timing issue. I would have asked everyone to vote on this weeks ago,” said Makely.
But after sending an e-mail and posting on Facebook, the only pushback Makely has directly received came from a former SGA representative, who argued the new election dates were short-changing the freshmen’s voice.
“This change I really don’t believe will negatively impact first year’s voice,” stated Dutton. “It will impact their vote but not their voice. Their voice should be as strong as ever.”
Makely suggested that freshmen can serve on committees as a student voice without holding a seat on SGA, or they could run in a special election in the beginning of the year. There are currently three freshmen on SGA already.
Makely is looking for more students to get involved.
“We don’t really get people coming in with dialogue, and I think that’s what we were trying to do in changing [the election cycle].” said Makely. “We’re trying to get people more engaged, and that’s by keeping members first.”
In addition to changing its election cycle, SGA has created a new constituency program, where one representative contacts multiple clubs and organizations and passes on student concerns, and to get members more connected to the community. Additionally, Treasurer Gaby Baum ‘21 worked with Dutton to digitize the paper warrant system.
SGA will be holding a special election on Halloween to fill its remaining vacancies.
