New VSA Council passes new by-laws

Hayley Tsukayama Staff Writer

On Sunday, May 7, the 2006-2007 Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council met for the first time, immediately after the final meeting of this year’s VSA Council. Discussion during the 2006-2007 Council meeting primarily focused on the approval of bylaws for the new VSA constitution. The revised by-laws included grammatical and technical changes, as well as some new provisions. They did not include any of this year’s Publication Task Force’s recommendations for handling offensive material in student publications.

In last month’s VSA elections, students overwhelmingly approved a new constitution by a vote of 595 to 40. College President Fran Fergusson and the faculty then ratified the new constitution.

New by-law approval, unlike constitution ratification, is solely up to the Council’s discretion.

According to VSA President-elect Abel McDonnell ’07, the new by-laws had to be approved in Sunday’s meeting for the sake of the student body. “Because the new VSA constitution was adopted on May 3, the old by-laws were no longer in effect,“ said McDonnell.

For the four days between the new constitution’s ratification and the 2006-2007 Council meeting, there were technically no by-laws, and therefore no student organizations. The Council certified all existing organizations, and granted organization status to three new student groups.

The VSA Council approved all the proposed by-laws unanimously. There was deliberation over additions concerning the article on elections.

Some Council members took particular issue with the new provision for “Emergency [election] Procedures“ which read in the draft, “In the event of extenuating circumstances, the Board of Elections, in concurrence with the VSA Executive Board, may recommend suspension of any section or subsection of this article of the VSA by-laws.“

The Constitutional Review Committee added this clause in response to problems encountered before the spring elections, resulting in a last-minute switch from electronic voting to paper ballots.

Raymond House President Robert Voigt ’08 said he thought the implications of this clause were “kind of scary.“ Council members voiced concerns that the powers it granted were too vague.

VSA presidential candidate Michael Donnelly ’07 was also present at the meeting. Donnelly said he was concerned with the clause particularly because “it does not stipulate who declares an emergency,“ nor does it define the emergency which could make the clause take effect.

“There needs to be a check and balance,“ said Donnelly.

The Council amended the clause on Sunday to read that the Board of Elections and the Executive Board could “recommend suspension of any section or subsection…excluding Sections 1 and 4 of this article.“ Section 1 outlines the regulations for the Board of Elections, and Section 4 addresses eligibility.

At the VSA meeting, Donnelly also advocated the immediate formation of an independent task force to further examine the elections by-laws. This task force would not contain VSA members. There was debate among Council members regarding the extent of VSA representation on the committee.

Both McDonnell and Organizations Executive Sam Charner ’08 objected to separating the task force from the VSA council completely.

Charner said that complete separation would create a disconnect and “if [the task force] were to come up with something that is wildly unfeasible, then someone from VSA would be present to say it wouldn’t work.“

“I’m perfectly open to having a task force to review the elections by-laws,“ said McDonnell. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to explicitly exclude certain VSA members from participating.“

Town Students representative Sophie Clark ’06 motioned to form the task force, and Academic Executive Rachel Zoghlin ’07 motioned to table Clark’s motion. The Council passed this motion to table discussion of a task force until fall.

Absent from the new by-laws were the suggestions made by the Publications Task Force. Formed in November 2005 in the wake of the controversy surrounding the Moderate, Independent and Conservative Association’s (MICA) publication, The Imperialist, the Publications Task Force’s aim was to set guidelines for how the VSA should deal with issues of defamation, libel, and offensive material in student publications.

The Task Force submitted its recommendations to the Constitutional Review Committee, but the Task Force and Committee decided to postpone presenting the suggestions to the VSA Council until next fall.

In a printed letter to the Council which was distributed at the Council meeting, the Task Force explained that they had decided to postpone making recommendations so that all issues were given the proper amount of time and deliberation. The letter was signed “Publications Task Force,“ not with individual names of task force members.

Liz Kaeser ’06, a member of the Task Force and the outgoing Terrace Apartments Representative, said, “I was disappointed that the publication by-laws weren’t included, and while I supported the report that we gave to the VSA as an accurate summation of our year’s activities, I still felt that our by-laws very easily could have been included in the by-laws that were presented to Council.“

Additional reporting by Juliana Kiyan and Katie Paul, News Editors