Students encouraged to vote on SC constitution
Students can vote on the proposed Student Confederation constitution on Dec. 8 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. in Mary Graydon Center, Room 120. The SC Board of Elections will hold an informational meeting on the document in the Gianni Lounge on Nov. 30.
Hye Jin Lee, the newly appointed chair of the board, urges students to vote in the election.
"I think the students should take the opportunity to come out and vote," Lee said. "This is a document that affects the whole student body, not just the members of the Student Confederation."
Lee said the board will help students make an informed decision at the polls by asking them to read over the new document before handing them ballots, providing copies of the new and old documents and answering students' questions about the differences between them.
Members of the SC who plan to campaign for or against the constitution will turn in forms to the board at a nominating convention at the board's office from 5 to 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 1. Lee said the specifics about the forms, campaign rules and other details will be finalized at a meeting later this week.
A two-thirds majority of student votes is required to pass the constitution, which includes minimizing the General Assembly by 10 seats and changing the name of the Student Confederation to the Student Government, and General Assembly to University Senate. For more information on the constitution, which the General Assembly approved on Sunday, see the Nov. 15 edition of The Eagle at www.TheEagleOnline.com.
AU to keep fall break for at least one more year
The University will keep fall break on the calendar for the fall 2005 semester, but it is still considering changes for fall 2006, according to Student Confederation President Polson Kanneth and Nathan Price, special assistant to Provost Neil Kerwin.
"Given the amount and variety of significant input and comments from students and faculty, it was prudent to retain the current model ... in order to further evaluate it next year," Price said.
Kanneth said he had discussed a variety of calendar options with the provost's office and found that none of them worked better than the current one.
"We hashed out a lot of ideas, and then we decided to just stick with what we had said before," Kanneth said at a meeting of the General Assembly's Academic Review Committee Tuesday night.
Reconsidering the calendar for fall 2006 "gives us more time to sit down and talk about these proposals," he said. The academic calendar is usually set by early October, but this year the process was slowed due to the debate about fall break.
Kanneth said that he received more than 130 e-mails on the fall break issue from students. "It proves that we're actually serving students," Kanneth said.
