The Student Senate elections are underway this week with 16 candidates running for 10 open seats. At their Sunday meeting, the Senate was primarily concerned with the proposal to amend the athletic appearence policy and a proposal to repeal legislation from the rules and regulations that outline an antiqated residence hall party planning policy.
A discrepancy between the voting instructions on the paper ballot and the electronic ballot was discovered Wednesday regarding the number of candidates students were supposed to vote for. The paper ballots asked for students to vote for eight of the 16 candidates while the alpha program asked for students to vote for five.
The confusion was based on a misinterperetation of the bylaws which stated students should be able to vote for half of the number of seats available. According to senator senior Claire Koczak, senators making the ballots got confused and wrote to vote for half of the number of candidates running.
"The easiest way to amend our discrepancies in voting was to change the alpha vote program to allow people to vote for eight candidates online," Koczak said. The 40 students who had voted online were mailed and allowed to vote again.
With the logistical election kinks ironed out, the Senate has recieved 259 of the 600 needed votes according to Koczak.
Endorsements are being used for this years election for the first time. The endorsments are replacing organizational senators in next year's smaller Senate and are a result of the revised Senate consitution. Candidate endorsments arose in the restructuring of the Senate because organizational senators' work was not neccessarily directed to their organization.
"Very few organizational senators used their orgaizational affiliation often," Koczak said. She said the endorsments were not as popular as she expected they would be.
"I think they have yet to realize their full potential. I hope that in the future they will be used more," Koczak said.
Senator junior Dan Persky said he was surprised with how few candidates used endorsements. He said the importance of having endorsments was to reach out to campus organizations. "Organizations probably like the candidates approaching them for endorsements," he said.
At the Senate's Sunday meeting, former Senator sophomore Joshua Kaye proposed that the residence hall party planning section of the Rules and Regulations be repealed because it is no longer followed nor can it be with changes in college personnel since the rule was passed. The rules were added in 1976 and describe rules regarding alcohol, non-OCID people at a party and who a party organizer must contact before having a party.
Kaye said the alcohol portion of the rule is reiterated in another section of the Rules and Regulations as is a policy regarding when a non-OCID person can be in dorms. Kaye said proposed removing the section "because it is redundant, xenophobic and inaccurate."
Senator sophomore Chuckie Kamm said, "I think we should repeal it. It's obsolete."
The proposal passed.
An appearance policy was also discussed at the meeting. The new proposal submitted by Kaye and former senator junior Chapin Benninghoff states that community members refrain from dressing in a manner that constitues a clear and material interference with other community members and supports that appearance should not be grounds for discrimination or punishment. The proposal was tabled at the last meeting and was voted on this week.
Senators debated the need for the proposal. Kaye said he spoke to athletes who were primarily concerned with the lack of a grievance procedure in the athletic department, but he said the issue of appearance was still important to some.
After little debate, the Senate passed the proposal 8-1-4.
The Senate approved SOC charters and discussed its power to make exemptions and extensions of charters. They discussed how to deal with organizations that hadn't submitted charters for next year.
After some discussion about the actual timeline of chartering an organization, the Senate approved a proposal to freeze the accounts of delinquent orgaizations and declare the orgaization defuct if their proposal is not handed in two weeks prior to the second General Facutly meeting next semester.
Rocking the vote: People busy with the last week of classes took the time to vote. Even stressed people can care. (photo by Stina Rudden)
Related Stories:
