What Changes Constitute the New Constitution?

KATHERINE ONG
MICHELLE PAULINO
Opinions Editors

Every year, the Associated Student Body (ASB) reviews their constitution to ensure that the policies, regulations and positions work fairly in the interests of the student body. This year, the traditional constitution was overhauled and recreated from the backbone up.
The current ASB believes that the old constitution was very unclear and vague on many points and included many concepts that were unnecessary and unreasonable. This was a well-planned move on ASB’s behalf, considering that the old constitution was truly outdated, lengthy and excessive.
ASB’s modified version features condensed sections, concise language, explicit objectives and an overall well-organized structure. Each position’s duties are now clearly outlined in an easily comprehensible manner. However, the new constitution also includes several changes to the terms, resulting in quite a digression from points written in the previous constitution.
A major change in the constitution was ASB’s decision to extend a service term from one semester to a full academic year, eliminating the need for mid-year elections. The purpose of this change was to eliminate inefficency as a result of re-elections . At first, this may seem like a self-serving change since eliminating the chance to elect another student to the position for second semester results in half the opportunities for interested students and guarantees the incumbent member their same position for the next semester. However, this change streamlines productivity for ASB. First semester members were not allowed to plan the next semester’s events, resulting in a loss of valuable time better spent on preparations. Efficient functioning is more beneficial to facilitating the student body than giving other students a chance to serve on the committee. Besides, re-elections have been futile in the past since incumbent members were re-elected into the same position the following semester more often than not; essentially, valuable time was lost for unnecessary reasons.
The constitution created the new positions of Assistant Directors to compose part of the newly constructed Cabinet. In order to get the position, students must be appointed by the Election Committee. The intent was to make sure that the individuals appointed are qualified for the responsibilities required and are not chosen based on popularity. It is understandable that ASB would want to avoid a popularity contest by appointing Assistant Directors. However, this seems contradictory due to the fact that Director positions are elected by the student body.
The constitution features a drastic remodeling of ASB’s components. Many offices were either cut or merged with a similar office, in addition to the creation of new offices. The MOOR Representative and the ALHAMBRAN Representative positions (commonly known as Newspaper and Yearbook Reps. respectively) were merged under the Director of Public Relations position. We oppose this notion due to our familiarity with the responsibilities that the MOOR rep. entails. ASB’s intention for this change was due to the similar job responsibilities of the two offices. So similar, in fact, that they decided that one person is sufficient for both jobs. Nevertheless, these positions were better left as two separate offices. Although the representatives have similar responsibilities within the ASB committee, the organizations themselves have responsibilities to the student body that are unrelated to each other. To merely have one person to serve as a representative for both, when both have dissimilar or even contrasting goals and interests, is inefficient and counterproductive.
Additionally, since representatives serve as liaisons between the organizations’ members and the committee, it’s unreasonable to expect organization members who may be unfamiliar with the appointed representative to comfortably relay their concerns to someone they have had no prior experience cooperating with. Although the members might have opportunities to work with the representative, unless these instances are frequent enough to substitute working with a member of the same organization every day, a trusting relationship cannot be built. In regards to whether this aspect of the new constitution will be helpful or not, this approach may actually perpetuate ineffectiveness in communications between the Public Relation figures on campus with ASB.
Despite its few flaws, the new constitution remains to be a positive step towards campus improvement. In comparison to the old constitution, it now provides ease and overall streamlining so that ASB can now focus the entirety of their efforts on improving the campus experience. We hope that other organizations that have been affected by the merged and/or eliminated positions will not be as adversely impacted.
As a whole, the constitution will benefit the student body and help ASB fulfill their responsibilities more efficiently. Appreciation must be given to our ASB members for the hard work they have demonstrated in their creation of the entirely new type of student government that will be put into action next year. Though these changes might not significantly influence the impact the new ASB will have on the governing the student body, they do alter the way ASB will operate itself.
All changes included in the new constitution have been made with consideration to the student body’s needs, and it is clear that they had many difficult issues to mull over in order to make policies in the best interests of the students. Although their revision of the constitution was not without its faults, they have laid a strong foundation to which future student representatives can provide their own amendments.