Issue date: 11/13/09 Section: News

The Ask a Student Senator segment is a bi-weekly question and answer article with a Student Senate member on various topics. Matt Pickham, a senior sociology major with a criminology minor, is this week's senate member. Pickham is a first-semester senate member and a member of the Committee on Constitution revisions. This week's topic covers the newly revised student constitution.

What is the student constitution?
"The student constitution is a document that defines all the government branches for the student body and the student bill of rights, a document that explains all the students rights. It's like the U.S. Constitution outlines policies for the government. Like how things are going to be run, who handles what activities. It's pretty similar to the U.S. Constitution."

How does the constitution affect the student body?
"It's going to outline how they're elected. It determines who represents students. It outlines their ability to join different Student Government organizations. Essentially what it is, is an outline of the powers of these organizations and from there, their individual bylaws take over."

Why was the constitution revised?
"The document had not been revised in six years. Things have changed between now and then. Just the way the student body needs to be better represented some of the changes in student government and the university, which has been adapting to the policies they've been establishing."

What were some of the changes made?
"There were a lot of mistakes. It was written more as a novel, rather than a constitution. It was extremely difficult to go through. We specifically went through and edited the document for clarity, to make it easier to read through and we went through and edited the grammar, like simple high school English stuff. It was a lot of small changes."

What was the process to revise it?
"We essentially found that it was outdated, and after reading through it, we noticed small problems. We established a committee consisting of fluctuating members, usually about seven. We went through and proposed changes. The committee would then discuss it and vote, change it and submit the changes. Every change was voted on a least twice - once in the committee and once at the Student Senate Nov. 4 meeting."

What was your role in the committee?
"I actually went through and changed a lot of the formatting issues. That was kind of my pet project, going through and making it easy to read. I did that as well as submit a few changes of my own and then discussed and voted on those."

What sparked the initial change?
"From what I've been told it was talked about last year, about the need to go through this document to really see if it works. It was just kind of a continuation of earlier discussions about revisions."

What happens next?
"The document is submitted to the elections committee and they'll go through and review it and the next step is the student elections. We need at least two-thirds approval of the student population who vote and then it will go into effect next semester."

Do you fully support the new revised constitution as it stands?
"I do. I'm extremely happy that the senate voted in the document. We spent a lot of time in the committee going through arguing the same points that happened at the Nov. 4 meeting. I'm really happy that the senate voted on it as it stands."

Emily Steele can be reached at 581-7942 or easteele2@eiu.edu.

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