Tonight in the Rotunda Dome Room, new Student Council leadership will be sworn in, 40 days after they were elected. And they have already broken Council's constitution, which states terms of office "shall begin thirty days after the end of spring elections." Council President Dan Morrison explained that having the ceremony in the Dome Room compromises the scheduling. "Honestly in the bylaws [sic] it does say within 30 days ... [but] if we abided by that, we'd be having it in Newcomb Dining Hall," he said. We don't fault Morrison for wanting to avoid the dining hall on his way out of Newcomb.
In Newcomb, third-year College student Johnny Vroom will replace him as Council President. In Newcomb, upstairs, the Honor Committee and University Judiciary Committee which had their elections at the same time as Council have already transitioned.
To the untrained eye, it seems Council's leadership could hand off their batons faster. But Morrison defended the length of the interim period as necessary for allowing the elected officers enough time to appoint new positions, including the president's cabinet. "You have approximately a month and a half to build an infrastructure which is basically that of a small country," he said. Morrison said reducing the amount of time for this task is infeasible, so streamlining the transition would have to be achieved by rescheduling elections.
Together, Council's extensive election and appointment processes run from January to April, giving the semester an appearance of transition. "I think traditionally there's definitely been a slow down Council has gone through in the Spring semester... as soon as people start putting names on posters, many people call it the obituary of Student Council leadership," Morrison said. But he said this year Council's young membership kept its momentum until the end of the term.
Morrison said the lengthy transition process is necessary to interview and appoint the best leaders, many of whom are currently on Council. This logic, however, works against Council, as the busy transition period could mean executive-elects and prospective appointees have less time to fulfill their responsibilities to the outgoing Council.
Vroom agreed that rushing the appointment process would not be helpful. But he said Council remained effective during this Spring semester. For Vroom, running in an election and appointing staff can be manageable time commitments given that many students are used having busy schedules. Vroom maintained that during the month of transition he kept up with his capacities both as president-elect and chief of cabinet. He also explained the timeline for interviewing for appointed positions, and said much of the process was done in two weeks.
Even if Morrison's Council administrators finished effectively and were not lame ducks, this still does not eliminate Council's structural problem of transition. Though the transition date is moveable - each term will have the same amount of time in office, regardless of when it starts - periods of transition are inherently awkward as individuals step into new roles. Council's one-month transition period should be shortened if possible, and it certainly seems to be.
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