The Griffon News

With the new changes of last year’s constitution in place, the Student Government Association (SGA) has started a new school year filled with more changes being implemented and more students getting involved.

SGA is an umbrella for five branches: the executive branch, the legislative branch, Residence Council, Campus Activities Board and the new judicial branch.

With the changing of officers came some major changes in SGA as a whole.

After five months, nine drafts and many late nights, the Student Senate finally voted on a completed version of the constitution, which completely revamped SGA.

“There are too many changes to go through and name every single one,” said Luke Herrington, vice-president of SGA and president of the Student Senate.

The new constitution went from 17 pages of choppy, large paragraphs to a more user-friendly version that read easily and was more than tripled in size.

Student Senator Lindsay Moyer said the changes made SGA more organized and easier when it came to getting work done.

“The new constitution is easier to understand,” Moyer said. “It is giving SGA a positive outlook towards the future.”

The future was definitely one thing the senate had in mind while rewriting the constitution.

The two branches mainly affected by the transition were the executive the judicial branches.

The executive branch, which is comprised of the Student Senate, expanded from 20 senators to 40.

“It was felt that incorporating new members, more members, would offer more opinions, views and ideas when attacking problems,” Herrington said. “The senate never used to have a demographic break down based on certain types of constituencies, now it does.”

Two senators represent each class – freshmen through seniors, with six senators represent each college – Professional Studies and Liberal Arts and Science. The rest of the senators are at-large positions.

The second branch was largely affected by the revamped constitution. The judicial branch is a new branch implemented to provide students with an unbiased court. Previously, a special committee of student senators dealt with judicial affairs.

“I thought that was dangerous because if there were ever a controversial problem, we could have many conflicts of interest,” Herrington said.

The Student Court was established within the Judicial Branch and serves as the Supreme Court to SGA. It is the one organization that students cannot be members of while being part of another SGA organization.

Although the process of transition was long, Herrington and SGA president Natalie Bailey are very pleased with the results.

“The process was really exciting,” Bailey said. “Luke did a lot of the legwork, but it was really cool being part of the changes.”

“Our expansion efforts were our way to involve more students,” Herrington said.

With more students in the picture, Herrington and Bailey have planned to reach some important goals. One of the goals SGA hopes to accomplish is to set up a book co-op due to Barnes and Noble’s monopoly on college text books.

“With Passport being closed, book prices are really hurting students,” Herrington said. “It’s our duty to find a way to combat that problem.”

Also in store for the new school year is the issue with the community involvement.

“I want the students to help out with the town,” Bailey said. “So many people have said that St. Joseph isn’t a college town, and I want to change that.”

Bailey also said that St. Joseph does not help out with Western traditions as much as it used to, and Western doesn’t participate in the community like it should.

“We need to show that we want to be part of the community,” Bailey said. “I want us to get along.”

These new changes and implementations are just a start of what is to come. For more information about the newly revised constitution visit SGA homepage at www.missouriwestern.edu/sga.