New Student Council bylaws have simplified the organization’s voting and decision processes, Michael Promisel, fourth-year College student and chairman of Student Council’s Representative Body, said Wednesday.
Student Council revised its bylaws last February in an attempt to reorganize the structure of the meetings and increase member participation.
In accordance with the new bylaws, Council meets every other week in a large representative session to vote and amend bills. Representatives also meet biweekly in smaller groups to consider each proposed bill and research necessary facts to later present to the larger body.
“[Last year’s] meetings were not as productive as they could have been,” Promisel said. “The way our meetings were set up was not conducive to constructive deliberation on issues that came before representatives … It didn’t facilitate finding the right answers — it just facilitated those that were most comfortable speaking in large groups.”
Vice President for Organizations Neil Branch, a fourth-year Batten student, said the new meeting structure allowed more representatives to offer their opinions.
“You get greater discussion when it’s a closer group of five or six individuals versus a large room of 20 or 25, which makes [the meeting] more like a lecture,” Branch said.
Council President Eric McDaniel, a fourth-year College student, said a new process to automatically appoint a replacement for members with poor attendance was more effective than the cumbersome impeachment process.
“By missing meetings, representatives aren’t fulfilling their obligations to the students who elected them, and these members are thus automatically removed [from Student Council],” McDaniel said. “In past years we would have had to go through a whole formal impeachment process to remove anyone that couldn’t do their job.”
McDaniel said this year already there has been a Council representative who had a family crisis and needed to take a hiatus from the University. The new system allowed for a quick replacement to be appointed.
Promisel said he does not anticipate the need for further amendments to the bylaws in the future, but hopes student body participation will increase in the coming semester.
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