by The Cowl Editor on January 25, 2018
Congress Updates
by Connor Nolan ‘19
Student Congress Publicity
Congress held its second meeting of the semester this past Tuesday, January 23.
Announcements
The members of Congress were urged to attend the Involvement Fair on Wednesday, January 24, and help improve activity on campus.
The class executive boards are working hard to plan events for the semester; be on the lookout for messages posted around campus or in the Morning Mail.
New Business
The Excel Club presented before Congress in hopes of gaining accreditation as a club on campus. The head of the clubs and organizations committee applauded their preparedness and strong foundation of students already involved in the club. With a plan to set up liaisons to different departments at the College, they hope to extend the knowledge of Microsoft Excel many have within the School of Business to other departments. They added that they did not require funds from the college if accredited at this time.
The Music Production Club also presented before Congress in hopes of becoming official. There is no such club on campus catering to the needs of those interested in creating music, according to the founder of the club. Although they did not have a direct plan for how, the creators of the club wish to help other groups on campus as a way of getting the word out about what they do, such as through creation of music videos or something along those lines.
After a member of Congress suggested they attempt to contact and work with the PCTV club, the proposer of the music production club agreed that this may be a good idea and that he knew people involved in PCTV. Their goal is to hopefully gain funding to support trips to music studios, and maybe in the future have one built on campus.
The final piece of new business for this week’s meeting offered a change to the current candidate structure of those wishing to run for Congress while studying abroad. The presenters of the piece of legislation wish to make it possible for two students who are studying abroad in different semesters to split the role of representative while present on campus. This was in hopes of allowing those who wish to be more involved with Congress, but also study abroad to have the chance to serve as a partial class representative.
This proposal was met with a good amount of questioning, with many feeling putting two names on the ballot would skew the results in favor of people who might know one of the two candidates and in turn vote for both. Also, some spoke to the merits of having to fill these positions with people who have yet to be a part of Congress, which is helpful in making Congress truly representative of all students. Some chose to offer compromises such as requiring more signatures than the customary 50 required to run if there are multiple candidates, or making this a temporary measure if not all representative slots are filled in elections.