ASR elects officers
Editorial
Issue date: 3/2/07 Section: Opinion
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On Tuesday evening, the Association of Student Representatives (ASR) Election Committee announced the results of this week's election to a moderate crowd in the Tiger's Den. Junior Pamela Adornato took the presidential position, Junior Britni Henderson was elected as vice president, 15 new students now fill the ASR Senate, and the amendments to the ASR constitution passed with approximately 55 percent of the vote.
These amendments address three major issues facing ASR. First, one of the amendments returns the ASR elections to their original April time frame. The elections were shifted to February following the ASR hotel scandal of 2004. Second, another key amendment allocates a certain number of senate seats to each class, ensuring that rising sophomores, juniors and seniors receive equal representation. Third, another amendment prohibits members of the Academic Honor Council from serving as members of several other major campus organizations.
While we commend ASR's efforts to revise its constitution, we have two problems with ASR's handling of the constitutional amendment vote. First, former ASR President Manny Gonzalez, senior, did not distribute a copy of the amended constitution to the student body until the Wednesday prior to the election, which gave the student body less than a week to consider the changes. A week is not enough time to form a campus dialogue about an important issue such as amending the ASR constitution.
Second, the election ballot only allowed students to vote for these amendments as a unit and did not give them the option of approving some amendments but not others. Those students who were manning the election booth explained that listing each amendment individually was impossible because many of the amendments were small grammatical changes to the constitution.
However, the Election Committee could have listed the three major amendments separately and could have included "grammatical changes" as a fourth amendment. Doing so would have allowed students to approve some amendments but not others. We encourage the Election Committee to take this step during future votes to amend the ASR constitution.
Finally, we are disappointed in the Election Committee's decision to ignore "no confidence" votes while tallying the election results. Not reporting these votes disregards the opinions of those voters who felt that no candidate deserved their votes. We ask that the Election Committee reports these votes during next year's election announcement so that no student's voice goes unheard.
Congratulations to the new president, vice president and senators. We eagerly anticipate a year of continued success for ASR programs and initiatives. In the year to come, we hope that both the elected ASR representatives and the ASR Election Committee will keep the interests of the student body in mind and will continue working for you.
These amendments address three major issues facing ASR. First, one of the amendments returns the ASR elections to their original April time frame. The elections were shifted to February following the ASR hotel scandal of 2004. Second, another key amendment allocates a certain number of senate seats to each class, ensuring that rising sophomores, juniors and seniors receive equal representation. Third, another amendment prohibits members of the Academic Honor Council from serving as members of several other major campus organizations.
While we commend ASR's efforts to revise its constitution, we have two problems with ASR's handling of the constitutional amendment vote. First, former ASR President Manny Gonzalez, senior, did not distribute a copy of the amended constitution to the student body until the Wednesday prior to the election, which gave the student body less than a week to consider the changes. A week is not enough time to form a campus dialogue about an important issue such as amending the ASR constitution.
Second, the election ballot only allowed students to vote for these amendments as a unit and did not give them the option of approving some amendments but not others. Those students who were manning the election booth explained that listing each amendment individually was impossible because many of the amendments were small grammatical changes to the constitution.
However, the Election Committee could have listed the three major amendments separately and could have included "grammatical changes" as a fourth amendment. Doing so would have allowed students to approve some amendments but not others. We encourage the Election Committee to take this step during future votes to amend the ASR constitution.
Finally, we are disappointed in the Election Committee's decision to ignore "no confidence" votes while tallying the election results. Not reporting these votes disregards the opinions of those voters who felt that no candidate deserved their votes. We ask that the Election Committee reports these votes during next year's election announcement so that no student's voice goes unheard.
Congratulations to the new president, vice president and senators. We eagerly anticipate a year of continued success for ASR programs and initiatives. In the year to come, we hope that both the elected ASR representatives and the ASR Election Committee will keep the interests of the student body in mind and will continue working for you.
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