SGA retains seat on A-Senate committee
Student Government Association representatives on Academic Senate helped draft and pass an amendment allowing them to retain a seat on the governing body's Committee on Committees.
The vote taken at Tuesday's meeting put an end to weeks of panic within SGA, which only learned of the proposal to take away its committee membership after the measure was presented as an agenda item on the A-Senate floor last month.
SGA Senator and A-Senate student representative Sandy Lane said he was thrilled with the outcome and what it meant for the future of student involvement on other A-Senate committees.
"I'm very pleased at the entertainment of our motion and our amendment and that it passed," Lane said. "We will definitely be involved in that committee. This issue has brought up other issues that we have been made aware of, and steps are in motion to fill the seats in all the committees that we are obligated to fill."
The measure calling for the removal of the SGA representatives from the committee was put forward by Committee on Committees chairperson Roschelle Heuberger, and was drafted after several years of faculty and student frustrations. These frustrations primarily focused on poor student attendance and a thorough lack of participation on SGA's part.
As the committee began to meet this year, three of its allocated student seats were not filled, leading Heuberger to feel that students did not want the seats to begin with.
Heuberger said her measure to change the membership language for the committee was not anti-student, but more of a way to make sure her committee operates without unneeded hiccups throughout the year, according to a prepared statement read by A-Senate Chairperson Andrew Spencer.
The counter amendment that helped SGA keep one seat on the committee, which was drafted by SGA Senator Kevin White, called for eliminating two of the three student committee seats, effectively keeping one student on board.
Upon hearing about the measure, Lane, White and SGA Student Body President Marie Reimers worked swiftly to make sure their access to the committee was held intact. They not only drafted the counter amendment on the same day, but also sat down with A-Senate members outside of the senate floor to figure out if their proposal could work.
The discussion to amend the measure displayed an overwhelming amount of faculty support.
"I would just like to point out this committee has 16 faculty, so I don't think having a quorum problem is entirely (the) students' fault," said Senator Misty Bennett, a business management instructor. "I do think students should be involved and I will always support that."
Senator Kennen White, a music instructor, agreed with Bennett's sentiment.
"I'm on a senate committee where a student has resigned because of a class conflict and could not attend, but I understand that this committee does a lot of their work by email anyway, so I don't see the issue, especially in terms of class conflict," he said.
Reimers told Central Michigan Life that if one seat was left open, Lane would take the empty seat.
Lane said on the senate floor that he and others appointed to other committees are ready and willing to serve in the fullest capacity.
"As we've talked about this, we do fully intend on being active participants anywhere we can," he said.
