2008 Woodie Awards
CUSA considers new structure
Katie Jones
Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: News
This week CUSA sent an announcement email to the student body inviting students to a discussion on possible changes to the Senate structure, which will later be brought to the CUSA for voting. Among the issues discussed were whether to keep the seats distributed by class, how to eliminate problems caused by popular voting, how to bridge the gap between the class officers and Senate, and how to represent the graduate students.
CUSA Vice President Matt Ruby, along with the other Senators and Executive Board members, is looking to "put forth the best effort to represent the student body as a whole," and he will be suggesting possible changes to the Senators.
The CUSA is currently comprised of an Executive Board of six members, six Senators elected to represent each class, and one Clarkson School representative. The Executive Board members do not have voting power. The discussion group agreed that each class should keep six Senators, although it was suggested that students be represented by housing location or school.
These discussions began last year in an effort to reduce the number of stagnant Senators. One problem CUSA has faced is that some of the Senators elected by the student body are elected because of name recognition and popularity, but they do not perform their duties as a Senator as adamantly as they should. Along the same lines, some really effective Senators who get work done and have great ideas sometimes lose in re-elections to others who have better name recognition among their peers.
To reduce the occurrence of Senators being elected simply based on popularity, the discussion group will recommend that one Senate seat from each class should be chosen by the CUSA body. To reduce potential bias, the applicants for this one seat will submit a written statement explaining why they are running for Senate and what ideas they will bring to the Senate. The Senators from the applicant's class will not vote on the applicant or read their statement, so that bias among classmates will be reduced. The applicants' statements will be distributed to Senators without their names attached, so that name recognition will not happen amongst the Senators. It was also suggested that this task be given to the Executive Board, but some were hesitant to give this power to the six Executive Board members.
CUSA Vice President Matt Ruby, along with the other Senators and Executive Board members, is looking to "put forth the best effort to represent the student body as a whole," and he will be suggesting possible changes to the Senators.
The CUSA is currently comprised of an Executive Board of six members, six Senators elected to represent each class, and one Clarkson School representative. The Executive Board members do not have voting power. The discussion group agreed that each class should keep six Senators, although it was suggested that students be represented by housing location or school.
These discussions began last year in an effort to reduce the number of stagnant Senators. One problem CUSA has faced is that some of the Senators elected by the student body are elected because of name recognition and popularity, but they do not perform their duties as a Senator as adamantly as they should. Along the same lines, some really effective Senators who get work done and have great ideas sometimes lose in re-elections to others who have better name recognition among their peers.
To reduce the occurrence of Senators being elected simply based on popularity, the discussion group will recommend that one Senate seat from each class should be chosen by the CUSA body. To reduce potential bias, the applicants for this one seat will submit a written statement explaining why they are running for Senate and what ideas they will bring to the Senate. The Senators from the applicant's class will not vote on the applicant or read their statement, so that bias among classmates will be reduced. The applicants' statements will be distributed to Senators without their names attached, so that name recognition will not happen amongst the Senators. It was also suggested that this task be given to the Executive Board, but some were hesitant to give this power to the six Executive Board members.
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