VSA Considers restructure

The Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council will very likely vote on major changes to its constitution and bylaws this Sunday, March 27. If passed, the changes will alter the Council's structure and representative configuration next year.

Under the current constitution, every class president and house president sits on VSA Council along with an Executive Board, which includes the VSA president and five vice presidents. The proposed constitution will create a Council in which the Executive Board remains, but the rest of the body's composition will change, including more representatives from classes and fewer from houses sitting directly on the Council and working, rather, from a new Residence Council.

The VSA's Operations and Student Life Committees have written the amended constitution and bylaws this semester, and hope to pass it in time to enact the new structure in the 2011/12 school year.

Under the new constitution, each class will vote for a class president and two class senators to sit on Council. Each house, as well as Ferry House, Town Houses, Terrace Apartments, South Commons and students living off-campus, or Town Students, will elect a president who will sit on a Residence Council.

The Residence Council, according to the proposed revisions, "shall represent and advocate for the interests of the student body in matters relating to Residential Life, Safety and Security, and Buildings and Grounds." The Residence Council will remove these issues from VSA Council meetings, and give the house presidents, who already meet weekly as the Board of House Presidents (BHP)—which this Residence Council will replace—a greater focus on house issues. The Residence Council will "have the autonomy to deal with those issues by themselves, but if it speaks to a larger campus issue they can bring it to Council at large," said VSA Vice President for Student Life Samin Shehab '11.

At the beginning of the year, the Residence Council would internally appoint a chair and two senators, all three of whom would serve on VSA Council. Other house presidents would not vote in VSA Council meetings or serve on the VSA's internal committees.

The VSA Council discussed the proposed amendments in a meeting on Sunday, March 20. Council members shared both support and concerns for the structural changes. "If you look at the current setup of VSA Council, every student is represented eight times, but under this setup every student is represented 12 times," said Shehab. Each student would be represented by his or her three class senators, the three Residence Council senators and the six members of the Executive Board.

"One of the main purposes of this is to work on inclusion," said VSA Vice President for Academics Laura Riker '11.

VSA Vice President for Operations Ruby Cramer '12 argued that the Residence Council would encourage those students interested in contributing to their houses to run for house president in annual VSA elections, and those interested in Council issues to run for senator. "The point of these revisions is to have people who are seriously committed to VSA Council," said Cramer.

However, other Council members were uneasy about increasing the representation of classes relative to houses on Council.

Class of 2011 President Moe Byrne '11 noted that House Teams include some of the most dedicated and active students on campus, and under a class-based VSA, "that voice is being not lost but muffled a little bit". She added that choosing just three house presidents to sit on VSA Council would be "giving an unfair voice to three residence halls that is not being extended to the others."

President of Raymond House Lita Sacks '12 agreed, saying that because students identify more strongly with their houses than their classes, "even though we would have more representatives per student on Council, actual representation would diminish." President of Main House Boyd Gardner '12 was concerned that the changes were coming too fast, saying "other Councils have used this system and have gotten stuff done. It seems like we're rushing into a complete change of system before we've asked ourselves what's wrong." Cramer responded that none of the structural changes was arbitrary; rather, they were designed to counter problems the VSA has encountered in this and in prior years.

In addition to structural changes, the Council has proposed a constitutional amendment stating, "The Council shall appoint its own VSA Council members to all student vacancies on College committees as they occur throughout the course of the academic year." Currently, any student may apply to fill an open committee position. Shehab said that this change would be "a move towards efficiency" that would also ensure that the "Council is more connected."

The VSA has also proposed a bylaw change in reaction to the increased amount of time spent this year discussing fund applications from student organizations. The proposed bylaw states, "The Finance Committee's recommendations for all fund applications shall be placed on the Consent Agenda at the start of each VSA Council Meeting.

If a member of the VSA Council wishes to discuss a Fund Application further before voting, he or she can remove it from the Consent Agenda onto the general Council Agenda for full discussion." Because fund applications are already determined by the Finance Committee and all items on the Consent Agenda are voted on at once, this change could shorten the time that fund applications take.

Council members are collecting feedback from their constituencies this week before they vote. If the amendments are passed, the student body will have two weeks to petition against them before they are finalized. If they are finalized, the new positions created by the structural changes will be open for elections this spring. VSA President Mat Leonard '11 announced that the new roles would be explained at a mandatory meeting for candidates prior to elections.