Elon SGA passes amended constitution, nine positions left uncontested

SGA Executive Board debates the passing of its amended constitution for the 2019-2020 legislative year.

Student government opens committees to all students in new constitution

ELON — Student Government Association passed significant changes to its constitution that, if approved by students during the voting period in March, could enhance students' accessibility to the organization and change the role of the executive board.

The amendments to SGA's constitution passed unanimously with little discussion from senators. If passed by the students on March 13 and 14, the Executive Secretary will no longer head events, like the Elon Ball. But SGA made it clear this does not mean it will stop putting on some of its favorite events.

Instead, the Executive Secretary will lead public relations. Currently, the Executive Secretary is the chair of the One Phoenix Committee, a programming committee. But if the new constitution passes, the Executive Board will search to appoint a new chair for this committee. The One Phoenix Committee is the largest committee in student government, according to Louisa Scolar, senator for the School of Arts and Sciences who led the changes.

SGA is also opening up some of its committees to be more accessible to students. Currently to join SGA, a student has to run during the election period, give a speech and campaign. But with the amended constitution, SGA is inviting four non-members to join the One Phoenix Committee, the Elections Committee, the Finance Board and the Public Relations Committee.

Senator for Campus Programs Michael Gibeley said that it doesn’t appear like it on paper but, “It’s kind of a really big deal because its increasing the accessibility to SGA to a lot of people.”

SGA has not received applications for nine positions:

• Executive Secretary

• Senior Class Secretary

• Senior Class Treasurer

• Junior Class Vice President

• Junior Class Secretary

• Junior Class Treasurer

• Junior Class Senator

• Sophomore Class President

• Sophomore Class Vice President

If one student applies to a position from this list, they will run unopposed. Current SGA Executive President Kenneth Brown ran unopposed in last year's election. SGA labels these seats as uncontested.

"An uncontested election occurs when the number of open seats on the Board is equal to or greater than the number of candidates. Each candidate is technically unopposed and will automatically be elected to the Board following the election process (excluding the vote, which will not be needed). All remaining empty seats will remain empty until the next election." - OTW Elections

Jana Lynn Patterson, associate vice president of Student Life and faculty advisor to SGA praised student government’s work in finding the holes in the constitution and looking for ways to improve it.

“You want the constitution to be your guiding star document,” Patterson said.

The 2018-2019 administration has made drastic changes in the past couple months to the way student government has operated at Elon, most notably with the new budget system.

Instead of asking for student organizations to draft a yearly budget request, Executive Treasurer Maxwell Pivonka worked with the Executive Board and Vice President of Student Life, Jon Dooley to try and better utilize student activity fees by approving organizations’ requests for funding on a “case-by-case basis." This way, organizations will apply for funding for each meeting or event, rather than drafting out how much they will need for the whole year.

In the next business meeting on Feb. 28 Pivonka said he would announce which organizations would begin receiving their funding directly from Dooley and which organizations would start on the new budget system.