The first meeting of the newly created ASSU Governing Documents committee met Thursday night in Old Union. The initiative, spearheaded by ASSU Executive President Michael Cruz ‘12 and Vice President Stewart Macgregor-Dennis ’13, aims to examine the basic structure of the ASSU and improve the organization by potentially changing the ASSU bylaws and constitution.
“The thrust of it [the committee] should be the re-examination of the structure of the ASSU compared to its effectiveness of serving students,” Macgregor-Dennis said.
The meeting lasted 50 minutes and covered what role the ASSU should play in serving the University, as well how it should be structured as an organization.
Only four of the 10 voting members on the committee were at the meeting, though by acting as proxies, the group was able to reach quorum and continue the meeting.
The constitutionality of that move was the subject of several jokes from former Elections Commissioner and non-voting member of the Governing Documents committee, Stephen Trusheim ’13, who suggested that the sub-committee that examines rules and best practices should consider making rules that can be followed practically.
Cruz decided to begin by discussing the structure of the ASSU because it would be easier to arrive at a consensus. However this proved difficult, as even the basic assumption that the ASSU should be a tri-cameral government with executive, legislative and judicial branches, was met with questions.
Trusheim pointed out that some aspects of the ASSU, such as the Nominations Commission (NomCom) and Executive committee, are independent and do not truly report to any other group. For example, the students appointed to various University boards by the NomCom do not report back to any department of the ASSU, a problem that Trusheim noted and Cruz agreed with.
An example of one of these groups is the newly-created Department of Internal Review (DIR), which is intended to be independent of any branch of the ASSU. However members of the committee expressed that they did not clearly understand its purpose. Cruz described it as a hybrid of what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Government Accountability Office (GAO) do for the U.S. government, prompting Constitutional Chair Samir Siddhanti ’12 to ask, “What does that mean?”
Another issue was whether or not the ASSU should be responsible for putting on student events or initiating events students enjoy. Cruz decided on the phrasing, “implement and support events,” which led current Elections Commissioner and non-voting member Adam Adler ’12 to quip, “That’s vague enough.”
Even meeting attendees questioned the structure of the Governing Documents committee during the meeting. Voting member and Senate Parliamentarian Alex Kindel ’14 said, “I’m worried about having 10 members and 11 subcommittees,” expressing concern over the large number of subcommittees that Cruz set up within the committee.
The committee plans to continue to meet and discuss ideas on how to reform the ASSU and have a clearer mission, with the ultimate goal of improving efficacy.