SGA discusses club constitution concerns
- Dylan Pichnarcik
- 16 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By Dylan Pichnarcik
Associate Editor
SGA President César Matos raised concerns about SGA’s role in approving club constitutions at their weekly meeting on Oct. 21.
Matos said he did not believe SGA should be a part of the approval process for new and amended club constitutions.
Currently, SGA and the Center for Student Experience and Career Development (EXP) approve the creation and amendment of all student organizations.
To receive funding from SGA and be recognized by the University, student organizations must have an approved and up-to-date constitution with EXP.
Matos said he does not understand why SGA is tasked with approving constitutions because an organization's constitution is not sent to SGA for approval until EXP signs off on it.
Matos said he believes putting constitution approvals in the hands of SGA may create conflict if SGA did not agree with EXP’s prior approval.
“They're essentially handing it to us the second they already deem it passable. So, essentially, we're coming in to just push paper,” Matos said.
In response, SGA Advisor Rachel Spezia said the reason for SGA’s role in the approval process is that approved student organizations receive funding from SGA through the Student Activities Trust Fund (SATF).
“The other part of it - if you think in terms of different branches of government and a new student organization is forming and you just have one office vetting it, it's not going through a review process. … It’s left on one person's desk and that person is left saying, ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’” Spezia added.
She added SGA serves as an additional organization tasked with "scrutinizing" a constitution so that a club is open and available to all students and abides by SGA’s bylaws.
She said the process to approve constitutions will be updated in the future.
After the discussion, SGA approved two new club constitutions - Criminology Club and Volunteers of FSU.
During the announcement portion of the meeting, Safety and Security Committee Chair Nathan Piette said the committee is working to address safety and security concerns on campus.
This includes creating a text line through the Framingham State Police Department to inform members of the community “in case something unsafe is happening on campus,” Piette said.
Piette said the committee is also working to set a date for SGA’s annual safety walk with the administration.
During his report, Matos discussed SGA’s recent initiative to gather information about student perspectives in anticipation of the upcoming Administrators’ Forum.
Matos said, “I met with Glenn Cochran, [associate] vice president of Student Affairs, and discussed the SGA initiative. Two things that he noted was he believes that a good sample to reach is 100 students. I believe that we can surpass those numbers, and we'll be able to gather satisfactory data once we surpass that number.
“I have full faith in us that we're going to surpass that and we are going to take this data and parse through it before admin forum,” Matos said.
According to Student Trustee Luke Yubeta, Administrators’ Forum will be held Nov. 18 in conjunction with a Club Representative meeting.
Yubeta asked members of SGA to submit questions they would like answered by administrators.
During his report, Treasurer Khoa Bùi said he will be sending monthly reports about the status of the SATF and how much of it is left for the remainder of the year.
The SATF is used by SGA to fund all student organizations on campus.
Bùi also said the Finance Committee approved a request for seed money for the Political Science Club which will be used for catering and events.
Matos announced two new members of SGA, Juniors Julia Pinheiro and Sophia Carvalho, who were unanimously appointed to SGA during the meeting.
The U-Rock was passed to Piette for his work as chair of the Safety and Security Committee and the U-Rock Ram, a new award which recognizes a member of SGA’s eBoard for outstanding work, was passed to Publicist Taylor Royal.
