The Student Government Association’s updated constitution was ratified by the student body last Thursday after a summer spent editing and revising the document. That same day was the first Student Government meeting of the 2016-2017 school year.
New first-year senators got their first look at the system and everybody else got their first look at the system under a new constitution.
The S.G.A. President, Charlie Bentley, said the purpose for updating the Constitution was mainly for comprehension. Bentley, and the rest of the S.G.A. Executive Board believed that the Augustana community as a whole was unable to fully understand the previous constitution due to its language.
“The goal of this constitution was to make everything more clear and simple,” Bentley said, “In the hopes that the students will be able to read our documents and understand [the Student Government Association] much better.”
Bentley appointed S.G.A. Treasurer Allan Daly to head the update after the Executive Board travelled to Washington D.C. for a conference.
“I attended a session about constitutions and how to update them,” Bentley said, “I learned so much during this session and I became inspired to take a look at our own document.”
Daly and S.G.A. Speaker Samantha De Forest-Davis worked over the summer on altering the constitution and bylaws to get ready for the start of the school year. The new constitution was finalized on Aug. 31 of this year.
“The original documents were 25 pages total, and now the constitution and bylaws are down to 16 pages,” Bentley said. According to Bentley, the original document was sloppy, using paragraphs where a sentence would have sufficed and organizing rules in the wrong documents.
The edit was also used to balance the power in the S.G.A. itself.
“We also added a few things into the Constitution that we believed would facilitate a more empowered student body and student senate.” Bentley said. The new constitution gives students the right to vote in all student body elections and address S.G.A., along with the powers of each member of S.G.A. and Executive Board.
The constitution states, “Full time students of Augustana who have and maintain a GPA of 2.5 or higher are eligible to hold any elected or appointed office in Augustana’s Student Government Association.”
The new constitution was simplified for comprehension and edited to include more power to the students, and the students are the ones that ratified it.
“We want to thank everyone for their help and support in getting our documents passed, and are excited to start operating under the new documents,” Bentley said. The new constitution will go into effect within the next week.