The Student Association assembly passed five bills in just under half an hour Monday night, including a bill giving the organization’s vice president a bigger role in the University Senate.

The University Senate Accountability Act of 2015 gives the SA vice president nonvoting status in the University Senate, the faculty governing body. In this role, the vice president will also act as the leader for the undergraduate senators in University Senate. The SA president, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Undergraduate Student Association president and the SU Graduate Student Organization president all have nonvoting status in the Senate.

During the meeting, the assembly voted to approve three bills changing Board of Elections and Membership policies and also voted on the recipient of the first ever SA alumni award.

The three approved bills concerning Board of Elections and Membership policy are:

• The Interview Courtesy Act of 2015 requires BEM to give all special boards and committees at least seven days’ notice before putting any candidates for these boards and committees before the assembly.
• The Interview Act of 2015 requires all interviews of candidates for assembly, special boards and committees to be done in person unless the candidate or interviewer is not in Syracuse or is ill.
• The Security Deposit Revision Act of 2015 requires the Judicial Review Board to decide whether a candidate is still eligible to run if his or her security deposit is used up.  All candidates put down a deposit at the beginning of the election that is used to pay any fines his or her campaign might incur. Previously, BEM, not JRB decided whether a candidate remained eligible if he or she used up their entire deposit.

Amanda DeNardo, a former Judicial Review Board member who proposed all three bills, told the assembly that she presented the Interview Act of 2015 because she thinks in-person interviewing is a good skill for SA members to have.

“Being actually in front of someone is a little bit, not scary, but it does help you build character at first and if this is your first time doing that it’s going to really help your leadership skills,” she said.

The assembly also voted to establish the Benjamin Jones Award for Outstanding Student Association Alumni, which honors alumni who remain dedicated and committed to helping SA even after they’ve graduated. The award is named after Ben Jones, a 2014 Syracuse University alumnus and former speaker of the assembly. Following the creation of the award, the assembly voted to make Jones the first ever recipient.

Jones was instrumental in rewriting the SA constitution, which was approved by a schoolwide referendum in fall 2013. Changes to the constitution included re-creating the position of speaker of the assembly and changing the presidential term so it aligns with the academic year instead of the calendar year. Jones also led the initiative to rewrite the SA bylaws in spring 2014.

Published on March 3, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Jessica: jliannet@syr.edu | @JessicaIannetta