Council Report 2014.10.22

The beginning of the meeting was heralded in by

OEC: Discussed the Following Motions

Student Life: Discussed the student life survey

Admin: Discussed the web presence motion

Student Activities: Added a new spirit day for Breast Cancer Awareness, discussed the potential of swipe cards

Curric: Discussed the web presence motion, and a survey

COI: Approved MI courses, which should be addressed by the school board soon

The first motion was to move the responsibility of approving campaign posters from Admin to OEC in the council bylaws. Henry Lang introduced the motion to officialize what had already been done in the past. The motion passed with no opposition or debate.

Henry Lang and Lilly Cadow introduced a much more complicated motion to revise the bylaws to remove the distinction between tuition and new students. Because the council can only have 48 members, this distinction can cause some unfair advantages. On one occasion two new students were running against one tuition student, who was elected by default.

According to Julie Stevenson, the number of council members is set at 48 because there are 48 common grounds. However, there is not a council member in every common ground.

Matt Prince raised the point that having at least one tuition student on the council adds a separate and distinct voice to the council. Coyote Ferrule rebutted that it is not the council’s duty to represent everyone, but to allow everyone to choose representation. Ms. Eakin dissented because many new students already know each other, and thus have a voter base whilst the tuition students do not.

Ms. Eakin, a community member, says that she feels it is important to maintain the distinction between the new and tuition students because it is important to maintain diversity. She was appointed to her position, not elected, and supposed that she would not have her position if she had to be elected.

Felix Heron thinks it is frivolous to hold a separate election for tuition students, since that boils down to geographical distinction and that would be foolish.

Chessie Newbold, a tuition student representative last year, said that after he was elected he was more of a freshman representative than a tuition student representative.

One common talking point was that if a student isn’t passionate enough to know about council, they shouldn’t be on it. Other replies sounded that few freshmen are passionate about council, but rather it sounds interesting enough to try out.

I personally voiced concern that representatives are essentially just trusted to make decisions, instead of acting as mouthpieces for their respective student bodies. 

After a tense roll call vote, the motion passed. Then the council recessed.