New SAC Constitution May End GUSA Oversight
Updated 2:14 p.m.
Student Activities Chair Sophia Behnia (COL ’09) proposed eliminating the GUSA’s involvement in SAC last night in an amended version of SAC’s constitution, potentially ending the 17-year relationship between the groups.
The changes would eliminate the Student Association’s role in SAC’s day-to-day operations. Behnia said that the proposed constitution will more accurately reflect how SAC is actually run.
Under the current constitution, SAC members are appointed by the GUSA president with approval from the GUSA assembly. The new version of the constitution would delegate that appointment to the “current chair under consultation with the vice chair and any he/she deems necessary.”
Additionally, the chair of SAC, formerly appointed by the GUSA president and approved by the assembly, will be selected by the current chair according to the new constitution.
Formerly, the chair of SAC was required by its own constitution to report its actions, including the removal and censure of SAC members, to the GUSA president and assembly; that responsibility has been deleted from the newer version.
Other changes included a movement from bi-monthly to weekly meetings and a policy of closed voting. Meetings will continue to be open to public attendees; however, non-members will not be allowed to view the voting process, so that votes will remain confidential.
The changes to the constitution, Behnia said, were meant to “reflect how we truly operate today.”
“The student association has not been involved in SAC for the past five years,” she said.
Senate Speaker Reggie Greer (COL ’09) said they were surprised that Behnia proposed such a drastic change.
“I was somewhat shocked after having several meetings with Sophia herself,” Greer said. “We’ve been nothing but forthcoming, and I don’t know why they are doing this.”
“We knew they were going to revise their constitution, but we were under the assumption that they were going to give [GUSA] a copy in advance. We hadn’t expected them to do it so soon,” GUSA Senator Tyler Stone (COL ’09) said.
Stone agreed that GUSA has played very little role in SAC in recent years.
“In the last couple years, SAC has operated independently of GUSA,” Stone said. “A few years ago, Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson wrote a memo essentially liberating SAC from GUSA.”
According to GUSA’s Constitution, “The senate shall have the plenary power to appropriate all student association funds, including the aggregate funds from the student activities fee, among the agencies, funding boards, organizations and initiatives it deems fit.”
During GUSA elections earlier this year, Senate Finance and Appropriations Chair Matt Wagner (COL '11) he aims to increase GUSA's role in SAC.
“SAC is a subordinate group of GUSA, and they seem to have forgotten that” he said in September.
Wagner said that the GUSA Constitution mandates that the senate work with SAC as it is, and said the commission cannot and should not be eliminated.
Stone said he is concerned that this revision to SAC’s constitution would be legitimizing SAC “as a distant, autonomous organization. … What they’re voting for right now will remove all accountability to the students.”
Greer and Stone both said that, while according to its current constitution, SAC remains under the purview of GUSA, the senate is not empowered to prevent the revisions.
“We realize there’s nothing we can do now,” Stone said. “We’re focusing on making changes in the future.”
SAC’s constitution was last updated on Jan. 25, 2005.
SAC to table the new constitution for further consideration, and the commissioners are expected to vote on the revisions next Monday.
Nov 11 2008 at 2:39 p.m.
I can't believe that this is ok. Now there will be 0 oversight over SAC and 0 transparency! Beautiful!
Nov 11 2008 at 2:44 p.m.
Wow, and I thought Rupert Murdoch was bad.
My name is Lin Chen and I am a sophomore in the SFS. I've been on SAC for one semester now. This article regarding the meeting last night is completely false and misrepresents everything discussed.
To clarify (or come out with the actual facts): last night during the SAC meeting, we discussed the tentative plans for moving forward with an agreement with GUSA regarding the appointment of a SAC chair.
The details discussed regarding the SAC Constitution are a moot point: the current version found on our website has not been substantially overhauled for about 5 years. Since I joined the organization, the way the Commission has been run is completely different from what is described in the Constitution.
For example:
1. Currently, the Student Association DOES NOT appoint the SAC Chair (as stated in the original Constitution). This job is done by the former Chair in conjunction with the CSP advisor and the Vice Chair. From what I've gathered, over the years it's been discovered that running this organization is not as easy as it sounds. There is a lot of bureaucratic red tape because quite frankly, more money is needed than can go around. Over the years, GUSA has really stepped back in the operations of the organization.
2. Differing from the Constitution, we hold meetings every Monday from 8 PM - closing in the 3rd floor of the Leavey Center. I encourage anyone with questions about SAC to please come and attend. Hell, I'll even provide the popcorn.
3. As I've learned, the detail regarding closed voting was implemented to protect the anonymity of each commissioner. This is especially important because as everyone knows, there are touchy subjects that we vote on and sometimes we the tough and unpopular choice is the right one.
Which brings me to my final point. Look, SAC is not here to raid your 401K and hoard your money. We are here to allocate your student funds in a fair and efficient manner. It's an effing tough job, one that requires many hours of work each week. I have just entered this organization, but in my one semesters work, my viewpoints regarding what we do have changed from skeptical to completely supportive.
The organization's far from perfect, and I completely support the Student Associations moves for more accountability (my own personal view.) At this point, we have a tentative agreement lined up with GUSA pending concurrent acceptance from the other funding boards. It goes something like this:
As I've stated, the SAC Chair today is appointed by the former SAC Chair. If all discussions fly through, then the next chair will be appointed by a committee composed of the following members: SAC Chair and Vice Chair, GUSA Finance Committee, SAC Club Leaders. This group will examine each and every application submitted, conduct all interviews, and select the candidate. We think this is a fair and equitable way of selecting the leader of SAC that will provide for more say by the student body and also reflect the current paradigms of the Commission.
At this point, I would just like to throw a bone at The Hoya. Thanks for screwing everything up guys. It is not enough to distort everything discussed, but also to inflame the student campus and lead blind crusades into dead end walls. Please, please, please, start doing your research and report the truth. In Atlanta, we would call this "keeping it real gone wrong." Come on guys we aren't going to ride on you or anything, but please make our lives easier by just telling the truth. Is that to much to ask?
In closing, I just want to invite anyone with any questions to please stop by the SAC offices in the 3rd floor of Leavey. I will be there today (11/11) from 11-1. Again our meetings occur every Monday night at 8 PM.
Thanks everyone.
Lin Chen
Nov 11 2008 at 3:10 p.m.
Lin-
One correction. As per the deal to which GUSA leadership has agreed with Sophia Behnia, the outgoing SAC Chair, the changes in SAC's selection process are not "pending concurrent acceptance from other funding boards."
The changes in SAC's selection are only contingent on discussion with the other funding boards - no changes have to be made to anyone else concurrently with changes being made to SAC. We only have to open discussion with the other boards about these changes and begin exploring options.
Lastly, if anyone is interested in going to a meeting where you can actually see how your representatives vote (since we are indeed elected representatives), come to the totally-public GUSA Senate meetings on Wednesdays at 9:30 on the first floor of Healy. Everything, votes and all, is open to the public. Considering the amount of responsibility, financial and otherwise, vested in us by the students, an open meeting is really quite logical. At least for us.
Best,
Matt Wagner
GUSA Senator, McCarthy 6-8
Chair, GUSA Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee
And a close friend and fraternity brother of Lin Chen, too.
Nov 11 2008 at 7:45 p.m.
"As I've learned, the detail regarding closed voting was implemented to protect the anonymity of each commissioner. This is especially important because as everyone knows, there are touchy subjects that we vote on and sometimes we the tough and unpopular choice is the right one."
You distribute around $200,000 of student club funds, money that comes, by and large, from the students themselves through the Student Activities Fee they pay every semester.
And you're arguing for LESS transparency and LESS accountability? Come on. Sometimes the tough and unpopular choice is the right one, but have the balls to say it to students' faces: It's their money, after all.
GUSA has open votes, why can't you?
Nov 11 2008 at 8:36 p.m.
If GUSA meetings are so public, then why did Reggie Greer ask all non-press spectators to leave the meeting before the senate voted on the Commission on Student Unity?
Nov 11 2008 at 11:48 p.m.
If so, it's a violation of the GUSA Constitution.
Art. I, Section 6. All sessions of the Senate shall be open to the public, and votes shall not be taken by secret ballot.
To be fair, though, aside from this, I've never heard of a GUSA meeting being closed to the public or the press. And the meeting was open to the press.
It doesn't excuse the behavior, but still -- it's a far cry from unelected heads voting in secret /as an institutional rule/.
Nov 13 2008 at 5:53 a.m.
Just because SAC hasn't been following its own constitutional requirements doesn't mean they should change those requirements: it means they should get their act together and follow what their bylaws actually say.
As for secret ballots, that is about as ridiculous as allowing secret balloting for the US Congress. WE need accountability for the 200K students give you. It's already bad enough students have practically no say over who is appointed to SAC: it's even worse when we can't see how our money is spent for us.
This sounds like your average Communist Party Pravda announcement: we will redistribute your money for you without telling you how we do it, but trust us and don't question our judgment, it's for your own good!
I'm not trying to be incendiary but it does sound like some excuse a authoritarian regime would say to keep control over its population.
Nov 13 2008 at 7:17 a.m.
Lin Chen seems to be saying that the Hoya got the selection process changes wrong, and that Behnia and SAC still support the idea of a GUSA-SAC-club leader committee for selecting the new chair. Am I reading that right?
Also, Lin--I don't doubt that the unpopular choice is sometimes the right one as far as voting goes. The answer isn't to hide behind anonymity, though--it's making the best case you can to students about why you distributed their money the way you did.