SA passes new bylaw

By Margeux Clemmons     3/26/09 7:00pm

The Rice Student Association voted to pass a by-law amendment to the SA Constitution Monday, instating the SA president as one of two undergraduate representatives to University Council beginning in the 2009-'10 academic year. The University Council, one of Rice University's advisory groups for the university president, serves as a method of communication between President David Leebron and the rest of the university. The University Council is comprised of Faculty Senate members, the faculty speaker and deputy speaker of the Faculty Senate, two graduate representatives and two undergraduate representatives.

Prior to this appointment, both representatives were voted onto the council during the SA's two spring election rounds. Lovett College sophomore Alex Wyatt was voted into the first undergraduate position during the former election, and Will Rice College junior Michael Rog was voted into the second position in the SA's supplementary spring election.

However, after members of the Office of the President realized last year that the SA president does not serve on the council even though the Graduate Student Association president does, they made a recommendation to the SA to put the amendment to vote, former SA President Matt Youn said.

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Youn, a Brown College senior, said the issue was brought up by several different people in the Office of the President throughout the year and that they were surprised the SA president was not automatically one of the council's representatives. Youn agreed with their suggestion and presented the proposal to the SA.

"I think it is appropriate for the SA president to be on the University Council, and I think it will be helpful for the SA president to be on the council both because he or she could be a good undergraduate representative on the council and because it would help the SA president to be up-to-date on issues the president is dealing with," he said.

Youn introduced the amendment to the SA on March 16. A second amendment, which would have given voting members a chance to instate the amendment for the 2010-'11 academic year rather than the 2009-'10 academic year, was proposed this week but did not pass.

"The voting members seemed to favor that if we were to implement the by-law, we might as well do it sooner than later," Youn said.

As a result of the change, the second University Council Representative position, which was awarded to Rog, will instead be filled by current SA President Patrick McAnaney. Wyatt will retain his position.

"I think it's a good opportunity for the SA to talk with the Office of the President, Faculty Senate and the Graduate Student Association all together, and I'm perfectly willing to serve on it,"' McAnaney said.

Wyatt said that the addition of the SA president as a representative will give different character to the remaining undergraduate representative position. He also said he believes he will have to carry out more research among the student body than he would have been responsible for with the former system, since the president may have separate issues to bring to the meetings.

Wyatt also said the change makes sense in the spirit of continuity.

"Overall, I'm happy with the change," he said. "I think it will be useful to have the SA president sitting next to me at those meetings. However, there will be more pressure, and it will make the position more of a challenge for me."

Rog mentioned that while he understood the motivations behind the change and held no grudges, he felt the loss of the second position provided one less interested person the opportunity to be involved.

"I think that the timing is unfortunate but the rationale is good," Rog said. "I think it's unprofessional to solicit candidates and have them go through the effort of signing the petition and campaigning only to take the position away from them."

Rog said he was not directly informed about the amendment prior to petitioning for the position, but that he found out when the amendment was announced publicly at the March 16 SA meeting. Rog also said he thought the second amendment, with which the change would have been instituted for 2010-'11, would have been more appropriate.

"I'm disappointed I lost a position I was running for uncontested," he said. "Ultimately, though, it's not about me; it's about people being in the right position to serve the university. So I guess they did what they thought was best."

Youn said that the idea was presented to Rog before the election, adding that the timing of the amendment was not to intentionally shortchange Rog.

"We told him what was happening as it was happening," he said. "I might not have done the greatest job keeping him up-to-date constantly, but it wasn't to hoodwink him. It's just an unfortunate circumstance.

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