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E ^ re 8 >u «A (_) §2 XD ♦- re t5 re M • ■c © *0 4^ • ®5 = aS - X , fO ■> X 5 re . re ^ M S|5 S=| ^ re o ® of 8*^ pl-cDr^ X . CM re r-iA c -c c IJil -c. ~ CM CL . ,S — • CD O S*^-=fiZ lA ^ 3 re Ik > C 5 5 re • S c *3 re >, to o c £ 5: ‘X re _ O O " o ® - ^ E" “i o w O S o o c 5 r f a| I I ° I - s S I mow SfMt " M ,0 c ^ mS* 01 E ^ ' I i s CO g, 0>‘r 3 »" re re £ o CO c ,• c re re ^ re ^ rex re r 5 ^ S O ^ ^ M CM CO ^ ID DCD opinion 'elect your own bureaucracy' by ed wayson sga vice-president I am writing this article as a reaction to the defeated Constitution amendment additional representation to the University Senate. Let me first point out the Purpose of the amendment, since only 15% of the students and approximately ’5% of the faculty voted for or against the Constitutional revision. It would have l^inly done two things; first, it would have increased student representation from ^0 senators to 19 senators and secondly, it would have given two senatorial seats lo non-academic employees (who are considered citizens of the University but ''Without any voting representation). The additional nine student seats would have been elected by their colleges. ”*ien Humphrey Cummings and I proposed the idea, it was with the conviction fnat since the University was growing so rapidly there was a definite need for the development of a stronger community on the College level, because the University bureaucracy had grown to such an immense size that no individual in his right 'bind could cope with it. This was our basic outlook on the University and our solution developed into l^hat was known as the "Constitutional Amendment On Additional representation." The second half of the amendment dealt with giving representation to a group citizens who were labeled non-academic employees and who had had only oken representation previously. When I say token representation, I mean that the ^’biPistrative professionals that were appointed by the Chancellor to represent hem on committees and in the Senate were in reality their supervisors. We immediately ran into problems from the very beginning. This concept was j/°P°sed by Humphrey Cummings and I nearly three years ago to the writers of , ® Constitution. Of course, it was in vain. The writers of the Constitution felt bat in order to get the whole concept of centralized University government and the same time let the faculty feel they had some type of control over it, was to viue the faculty the majority of the seats. Well, the faculty approved the Piversity government concept, with 10 seats allotted to students, 19 seats otted to the faculty, and 7 seats appointed by the Chancellor. Vou can quickly realize that the whole concept was not based on any ®mocratic or representative philosophy. The reasoning for this three-way Pequal division of representation was, as Dr. Barnette . said, only an experiment." In other words, if it tried to change policies or procedures which ere not supposed to be changed, it could easily be ignored. Secondly, the hanceiior had the right to appoint seven people to the Senate. The ^ministration reasoning behind this was, if a segment of the University was not 'epresented on the Senate the Chancellor could insure they would have ^Presentation by appointing a person to represent that fraction. . . ^ut, I feel there was another reason: that the Chancellor wanted to insure that '* voice would be heard at the same time. However, it is evident that with the ^Pointments he made, he realized that not all of them would agrw with him on issues. When it did come down to the nitty-gritty though, he had support of 'b® majority of the membership which insured support of present Administrative Policies (known as the official party position). He gained the support of most of b® faculty members, basically because most of them knew who had final PProval on renewing their contracts. With a doubt people like Df- Bigrtow, Dr. tarner. Dr. Jordon, and others did not know who renewed what; or did they? Well, with the University Constitution finally approved and ready, the next step was to elect senators. The Student Legislature didn’t quite go along with regimented procedures. The Legislature demanded some type of conviction on the part of the faculty and the Chancellor that additional representation for the students would be the first priority of the Senate. We finally got a hollow statement from the Executive Committee of the Faculty and agreement from the Chancellor that'it would be the first order of business. But, in reality, the statement gave very little support. So as Humphrey Cummings commented: "We are damned if we don't and we are damned if we do!" In other words, we should go on with the elections and take a chance since we had nothing to lose. At about the same time, Alan Hickok (then-President of the SGA) proposed a new Constitution which set up legislative representation on the basis of how many were in each college. This is sometimes known as district representation. With Student Representatives being elected from each college to the Legislature and faculty representation in part coming from each college to the Senate, the next step was to have on student representative coming from each college to the The Senate met for the first time during the first week of May 1971. We started with the usual formal bullshit (official party dogma). About half-way through the meeting, we decided to propose our amendment: well, it couldn't even make it on the floor since it wasn't on the agenda. We were reminded that we first must set up committees, elect chairmen, and thm deal with issues. A week later, there was another meeting. At this meeting we did pass a few pressing resolutions and voted to have a meeting during July. When July rolled around -no meeting. The reason was that no one would come except students and you can't have a meeting with just students, now can you? When we came back in the fall, we spent the next couple of months forming committees. Finally, in October, we could start bringing up issues. We, the student senators, decided to propose our Constitutional amendment. We met off-and-on for a week to decide how we would propose the amendment. When we started the meeting, we proposed our amendment and realized there would only be token opposition. It was passed by a vote of 24-to-6. We were overwhelmed. But, we soon realized that the main reason it passed on the floor was that we were on a one-to-one basis and our fellow senators realized they couldn't find any real arguments against the amendment so they had to vote the way they felt and not how the Administration felt about the issue. I want to point out that some of the faculty members, such as Dr. Robbins and Bertha Maxwell voted for the amendment because they truly supported it, and had supported it since the very beginning. The next step was to hold the referendum. Within a week, I was advised that it wouldn't pass because it just wasn't written in the "spirit of the Constitution." Also, many faculty members were never informed of the amendment. We soon realized that the amendment would supposedly be defeated because of two things: first, it was badly-written and, secondly, o no one had heard of it prior to voting on it. What the Administration (party machinery) had effectively done was to dilute the issue. I pointed out that the original draft was written nearly a year before; that it was coherent and written in the spirit of the original Constitution. Secondly, the proposal had been talked about for three years and the arguments had appeared in the Journal for the amendment on-and-off for the past year. It was the fault of the faculty for not bringing it up at faculty meetings not ours. As you know, it did fail and this I think is why. First, the Senate has become a bureaucracy, hung up in procedures. Second, instead of it being a channel through which needs can be met, it is being used as a researcher and not a facilitator. Third, the Senate will destroy any hope of semi-autonomy of the colleges, because nothing can be done without the Senate's approval. These are the three main reasons why 1 see no future in participating in the functions of the Senate. I realize my awareness is a little late, but hopefully other citizens of this University will realize that the Senate is only a trap and that the best way you can effectively work with people on this campus is through your own community (college) and not by becoming a part of a mindless bureaucracy which has an unsure beginning but which never ends! The only new concept which has come from the Senate is that you can now elect your own bureaucracy....

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