The new student senate bylaw – which has been paused – would’ve required club representatives to attend senate meetings, and it came from a good place. Student Senate wants to improve communication with clubs, I also want improved communication between student orgs and clubs.

But the roll out, and then roll back in, of the bylaw was not communicated well. Senate discussed and passed the bylaw without mentioning it to the campus community. Many people learned about it from a TKS article, and then protested. So, senate rolled back the bylaw. I appreciate that they listened, and are taking steps to work with the community. But again, they didn’t announce the roll back to the campus community either.

Senate says they want to meet with student organization leaders to talk about the bylaw before un-pausing it. But as a student org leader, I haven’t heard anything from them about this.

I also want better communication between orgs and senate. I’m not opposed to the bylaw, though I do think it has some flaws. But if the goal is better communication, then senate should practice communicating their proposed solutions.

Eleanor Lindenmayer – Editor-In-Chief

Communication between the campus community and Student Senate is incredibly important. However, the bylaw requiring biweekly attendance at Senate meetings was understandably overwhelming and undoable. This does not mean that there are not valuable ways to keep clubs involved in senate decisions.

Better alternatives can be achieved. If Student Senate had a club forum, or otherwise requested club input only once or twice per term, the pressure on clubs would lessen. Additionally, they could form an executive committee or position whose sole responsibility is club/organization outreach and communication. Clear communication is possible, perhaps in the form of emailed updates of any senate resolutions involving student clubs and organizations sent to executive boards of organizations.

Student Senate members or new club outreach positions could be encouraged or required to attend different club meetings throughout the term to better understand the clubs they work with. Ultimately, student club involvement in Senate is very possible, but there needs to be a better policy and implementation that considers other students more.

Ellen Miller Garrett – Managing Editor

This proposed bylaw already causes tension. People who want to just have fun in a club or organization are now expected to fulfill an ever increasing list of requirements in order to do so. The amount of work that is required by campus in order to host clubs is already so high.

For example, look at a club like Dungeons and Dragons, a group whose primary function is to book the Trustees Room on Saturdays and link people who are interested in D&D together. They not only have to fill the necessary exec positions, meet the minimum number of members, attend the Senate budgeting meeting and the DEI training every year; but also would have to go to Senate meetings, five times a term for two hours, so that Senate can know that their club does things.

With the over 108 organizations on campus, and the statistics of students overburdening themselves with organizations along with the amount of crossover between clubs of said students — where do they expect people to find the time and effort to attend these meetings? There is already such a great struggle to even get people to show up to anything at all for an organization – which in part, is not helped by the fact that there are all these insane amounts of requirements in order to be a club.

Red Engel – Graphics Editor

There is potential in this bylaw. With participation severely down on campus, there is a need for the general student body to come together, and to understand what is happening in Senate. However, with the understanding that participation is down, the bylaw in its current form is unmanageable.

Many clubs are barely keeping their heads above the water right now, functioning with extremely limited executive teams, and fluctuating attendance. The students that are on exec for clubs tend to have multiple clubs they are responsible for, not to mention the class loads and other responsibilities all students attend to. Finding a student on exec with the free time to attend the Senate meetings at that specific time every two weeks is difficult.

The way the bylaw is now, the few students available at that time would attend, representing several clubs, possibly clubs that they are not involved in. Actual active members from every club will not all have the opportunity to spend several hours watching a Senate meeting.

Selah Dow – Copy Editor