Student Association creates new ad hoc committee, establishing 5-year plan for future session policies
UPDATED: March 9, 2022 at 1:07 a.m.
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The Student Association passed a bill Monday outlining the formation of an ad hoc committee that will establish a five-year plan to act as a loose guide of policies for future SA sessions.
The chief of staff, speaker of the assembly, clerk, president and the vice president of the assembly, two of the vice presidents, two supreme court justices, two committee chairs, the speaker pro tempore and the chair and vice chair of the board of elections will serve on the committee, according to the bill. The committee can also include any member who wishes to join.
“Last (March) we passed our new constitution. There is still so much work,” SA president David Bruen said during the meeting. “We need to take a better look at specific issues, things like financial accessibility or student representation.”
During the meeting, Board of Elections Chair Richard Kaufman IV announced the results of a recent investigation the board conducted into a possible violation of the bylaws by Jordan Pierre, who is running for SA president, and their vice presidential candidate.
The report detailed that the joint-campaign was in violation of election procedure due to changing executive vice-presidents throughout the signature-gathering process.
The board stated that it will delay the start of Pierre’s campaign until noon on Wednesday, March 9.
SA also passed a bill acknowledging the hard work of marginalized communities in the law field. The passing of this bill follows President Joe Biden’s recent Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, who, if confirmed, would be the first Black woman on this court.
On Monday, Syracuse University appointed Craig Stone as the new associate vice president and chief of Campus Safety and Emergency Management Services. Bruen expressed his support for the new chief, who will begin this role on April 1.
“Mr. Stone was a very solid candidate from the start and had fantastic answers to my questions as a student, but also a lot of the varying perspectives on the committee. I think his experience is unmatched. I think he is a fantastic candidate to continue the changes that students have been calling for with DPS for years now,” Bruen said during the meeting.
Malique Lewis, SA’s vice president for diversity and inclusion, also said that he was looking forward to working closely with the new chief and hopes that Stone will be someone students can come and talk to.
“These are important times when it comes to safety on campus,” Lewis said. “Really, what students want is to know that there’s people who are supposed to deal with safety and are working on that and they are doing what’s best for campus and best for the students.”
Clarification: In a previous version of this article, it was said that two candidates violated SA bylaws by not collecting 500 signatures. This was not wholly correct. The candidates did provide 500 signatures, but the candidate for Executive Vice-President was changed throughout the process, causing the violation.
