The Student Senate will apply a new bylaw in Spring 2024. It states that every club funded by the Senate will have to send a representative to attend the five general meetings in the term. Club presidents think the new policy will improve communication, but they shared a few concerns and elements they believe could be improved.

Starting Spring term every club and organization that is funded by the student senate will be required to send one representative to attend the five general assemblies. The representatives will have full voting rights and will be able to raise motions. The attendance of a representative will be mandatory, and in case of a club not sending a representative, the club will be subject to denial of funds for next year. This new bylaw was passed on Thursday, Jan. 25.

President of the Student Senate, sophomore Sikander Mateen, said the new plan will be a good opportunity for the Senate to engage and communicate with organizations.

“I think it’s a good thing. I think it is going to help the Senate in terms of engaging with organizations, so it’s easier to spread the message of everything that the Senate is doing and everything that clubs are doing,” Mateen said. “Plus it’s a good opportunity to make announcements there, so if anyone is having an event they can say it there, and every club on campus will know about it.”

The clubs will be able to fulfill the requirement in three ways: by appointing a new executive whose role would be representing the club in the assembly, by appointing someone already from the exec to fulfill that role, or by rotating exec members that will attend the meeting. There will also be a duo-representation policy, in which one student can represent two clubs.

“It’s easier for the person and for the clubs that way,” said Mateen.

Mateen believes that the new bylaw will achieve more engagement, and the goal is to make communication more systematic and reduce the need for compulsory meetings to obtain funds.

“We want to achieve more engagement in terms of people knowing what is happening (…) when everyone comes in to ask for funds, we don’t have to have compulsory meetings that ‘if you don’t show up, you don’t get the money’. I think to make it more systematic will be the best way to put it,” said Mateen.

Co-president of Aaina, sophomore Tisya Goel, agrees that the new policy will improve communication. She believes that, even though it will be difficult to bring a representative to every meeting, the new policy can be beneficial.

“On the one hand, it’s gonna be difficult to send someone every time, but it’s a good opportunity for everyone to talk,” Goel said. “Increased communication means more collaboration and less clashes in events.”

However, Goel argued that representatives’ attendance should only be mandatory when club matters are being discussed. She also believes reps should get paid for attending meetings.

President of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) junior Diya Goyal, is concerned about the organization in the general assemblies since there are many clubs on campus. She, however, believes that as long as the meeting has an agenda, progress can be achieved.

“I think that that is a good step towards collaboration and efforts to make Knox a more tightened community, but at the same time I feel that it will have a shortcoming because if there are too many clubs coming to the table it will become a fish market,” Goyal said. “As long as the meeting has an agenda and everyone is working to it, then there could be more progress rather than everybody coming with ideas all over. But I think it is great that the student council is trying really hard to arrange a type of agreement.”

The bylaw will be applied for Spring 2024 and will continue in the future if its objectives are achieved.

“Spring term is more of a trial period to see how that goes. If it’s successful we will continue with that for the future as well, ” said Mateen.