The Student Government Association Senate approved three amendments to the SGA constitution. Students approved the proposed amendments by 70 percent March 16. The amendments were put into effect immediately.
The three main amendments to the constitution address voting percentage policy, presidential power and the creation of a new position in the legislative branch.
Former SGA president Cade Cypriano, A’09, altered the presidential compensation package. Along with covering half of the president’s tuition, the amendment would include compensation for room and board, one meal plan of choice and a parking decal for each semester.
Cypriano, along with Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs Robert Reed and Vice President and Associate Provost M.L. “Cissy” Petty, considered it a good idea to give future SGA presidents an incentive to stay on campus.
“It was really supposed to fill a loophole,” Cypriano said.
He said that presidents and vice presidents almost definitely have to take summer courses because so much of their time during the academic year is spent fulfilling presidential duties.
The amendments also include a change in the requirement of time at Loyola before qualifying for president, vice president and chief justice. Before, the constitution stated that someone had to have completed two semesters at Loyola before they could run for president.
Now, the requirement scale has switched from semesters at Loyola to hours completed, calling for 36 hours of earned credit for presidential candidates. The amount needed to run for vice president and for chief justice has been changed from two semesters to 24 hours.
The amendments also include the addition of a new executive board position, the director of student resources.
According to the proposed amendments, the new position will, “act as a liaison between students and SGA.”
The position of director of student resources, a title debated on for some time during SGA senate meetings, already existed as director of constituent issues in the constitution, but some of the senate felt the responsibilities resembled those of a senator and took away from students contacting their college senators about issues. Others felt it was a necessary position to free time for senators to fulfill their initiatives.
“To me it sounded like the position of constituent issues was defined as what SGA as a whole was supposed to accomplish, so I didn’t think it was logical to create a new position,” said Garrett Fontenot, SGA senator-at-large and history junior.
Some of the other responsibilities the director of student resources will include managing communication between the faculty and administration, managing SGA’s campus programming and upholding student traditions.
David Zoller, political science senior and SGA senator of the College of Business, headed the constitutional review committee, which monitors the constitution, bylaws and other areas of SGA laws.
Zoller said the committee had been working since the end of the spring 2009 semester to make the changes that appear now.
“It was a long process, but I actually enjoyed it,” Zoller said. “I wanted to honestly take a good look at it and make changes that would last as long as possible to represent students as best as possible.”
Maria Rossi, SGA vice president and English and philosophy senior, agreed.
“Many of these proposed amendments help ‘open up’ SGA to the students,” Rossi said in an e-mail.
Other senators on the committee include senator-at-large Atoyia Scott, College of Humanities and Natural Sciences senator and philosophy freshman Raven Crane, College of Social Sciences senator and mass communication freshman Jared Brooks and College of Music president and music education sophomore Michael Morin.
Ashley Stevens can be reached at [email protected]
