Senate passes College Debate Team Charter

Meeting begins with tension due to semester-long miscommunication

Although senators did not have many items on the agenda for their meeting Sunday, the night began on a tense note as they discussed a proposed charter for the Oberlin College Debate Team (OCDT).

In order for any College activity to ascertain funding from the Student Finance Committee (SFC), it must draft a charter that is approved first by Student Senate, then by the Student Life Committee (SLC) and finally by the General Faculty (GF).

Sunday was Senate's last chance to pass the debate team's charter this year, since at the time SLC planned to have its last meeting Monday and would have to approve it then or wait until its first meeting next semester.

Debate Team Charter

Senior Afua Dennis attended the meeting to plead with senators to pass the debate team's charter, which she'd mistakenly assumed had been passed by Senate in February.

"I'll be leaving next year and I wanted to make sure everything is in place so people would have a chartered organization," she said. "This is something I put a lot of time and energy into and I don't want to leave things kind of hanging or unfinished."

The charter had not come before Senate prior to Sunday's meeting due to a miscommunication between Dennis and senator senior Chapin Benninghoff. As Senate's organizational coordinator, it is Benninghoff's job to review charters and work with students who create them if their format needs revision.

Dennis said Benninghoff had examined the charter when she'd first submitted it to him in February. She said he then gave her a list of recommendations for specific changes to the charter's wording, but that he had not followed up on making those changes. The charter distributed to senators had not been changed from its original draft.

Benninghoff said, "Once I recommend changes to an organization, it becomes the burden of that organization to come back to me and then we work it out."

Dennis said she had been waiting for Benninghoff to contact her further about changing the charter's wording. She said there was also confusion about which of Benninghoff's proposed changes were required in order for Senate to pass the proposal and which were merely suggestions.

Benninghoff said many of the changes he'd recommended were necessary in order for Senate to pass the charter, since all activity charters must adhere to a strict format.

"I don't understand why you didn't let me know much earlier," Dennis said.

Dennis reminded senators that this was their final chance to pass the charter this school year.

"This is kind of at the 11th hour," she said. "These are really very exceptional circumstances, and considering that, I don't see the problem with passing the charter. This is not a controversial organization or really particularly questionable. It's something I think could be very beneficial to the College."

Senator senior Joshua Kaye said he did not think the charter could be passed in its original format. "It's not an issue of being controversial. The only controversial layer there is whether it conforms to the bylaws, and this doesn't."

Senator junior Meagan Willits tried to clarify Senate's process for Dennis. "This isn't something we made up to make life difficult for students-it's a format followed by every organization on campus, all 115 of them," she said.

Senators voted for Benninghoff and Dennis to leave the meeting to change the charter's wording and to return with a revised charter later that night.

When the two returned with revisions satisfactory to both of them, senators passed the charter with 10 in favor, three abstentions and two absences.

The charter's organizational mission statement remained unchanged, though Benninghoff had some concerns with its wording.

"My concerns were only recommendations, but OCDT liked the purpose as it is," Benninghoff said.

The charter's purpose states that, "We aim to see some of the passion and enthusiasm and commitment to principles and ideals with which students often come to college and/or develop or incorporate or adopt during college be used to defend their ideas articulately and rationally as well as with conviction."

Elections and Referendum

Senators also discussed the lack of general student body awareness about Senate's current referendum, or survey about an array of issues pertaining to student life.

The referendum has been available for students to electronically vote on since April 15. At least 50 percent of the student body must vote on the referendum, which asks student opinion on such matters as senator compensation and providing alternatives to on-campus housing. Currently, not even a quarter of the student body has voted.

If 50 percent of the student body does vote by the end of the school year, Senate is bound to act in a manner concurrent with the majority vote.

Senator senior Dan Persky expressed concern at the low voter turnout for the referendum. "If not enough people vote, that automatically means that none of the things on the referendum pass," he said.

Senators also talked about the need for further publicity of the upcoming Senate election. Nominations are now open and end this weekend; elections begin Monday and extend through Friday.

"No amount of candidates is enough unless you're running, so everyone who's not running should spend a lot of time thinking who would be a good senator and convincing them to run," Kaye said.

Senator senior Dan Persky said, "It's going to be very difficult to have elections at the same time as the referendum. We only need 20 percent of the student body to vote in the election, as opposed to 50 percent for the referendum. But it will be twice as hard to get that 20 percent because people have been asked to do so much recently."

Senator sophomore Sarah Stein Greenberg said currently only 740 students have voted, marking only the half-way point to the 1500 voters needed for the referendum to be complete.

"We will be finished with this referendum soon," Stein Greenberg told her fellow senators. "We have to be; we have an election to run."

Senators discussed ways to increase the student body's awareness of both the referendum and the election.

The powers that be: Senators Sarah Stein Greenberg, Joshua Kaye, Dan Persky and Erika Hansen listen to debate and discussion at Senate's meeting Sunday. (photo by Zach Fried)