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New changes to Student Government constitution, hopes to bring diverse representation to the senate

FRANCESCA BOSTON lifestyles editor

After months of revisions and committee meetings, student government put a set of constitutional revisions to a senate vote at the first meeting of the year. The revisions failed to pass, but some remain hopeful the revisions will be in place in time for the spring elections.

In November of 2022, the executive board brought constitutional revisions to the senate meeting. These revisions would add more senators who were meant to represent minority and underrepresented groups.

In the most updated version of the proposed revised constitution, there would be 12 additional senators. Two international student senators, two non-traditional student senators, one student-athlete senator, one military and veteran affairs senator, one students-with-disabilities senator and five senators who would make up the diversity council. The diversity council would be made up of students who receive two endorsements from registered campus clubs of the groups they are hoping to represent. Student Body President Rahmat Salau said this was to guarantee the people in this position were actively working to advance those groups.

Salau said having senators who students can identify with, who look like them, have similar shared experiences and who have understood that student’s plight can provide a sense of comfort for minority students, but to her, it’s more than just providing support.

“Apart from supporting the diversity of people on campus, I think minority students on campus need to have a voice,” Salau said. “There needs to be room for listening to the minority population on campus to make sure that we’re actually reaching all students.”

Another part of the proposed revisions is the criteria for the creation of new senate seats. Under the revisions, if student government wants to add to the senate population in the future, for that position to be approved, the constituents must make up at least 5 percent of the student population for a period of a least 3 consecutive years, and there must be a campus-wide occurrence that triggered the creation of a group to petition to call for the seat to be created.

Salau said that these changes are not a novel idea. Several other local universities, including SI-

UE’s sister school in Carbondale, have amended their constitution to include senators to represent diversity. According to the SIU student government’s website, the constitution was most recently updated in March of 2021 and includes a Hispanic Student Council and Saluki Rainbow Council.

Sophomore Barrett Larkin, who had previously served as the School of Business senator, now serves as the Organization Relations Officer. Larkin was the only senator to vote nay at the January meeting. He said in the first meeting of the year he had tried to pass a motion to put the revisions to a student body vote, but was unable to gather support for the idea. He said that the whole process lacked transparency, which is what made him fight to get the revisions on the ballet.

“[The senate] didn’t know anything about it [at the start]. The committee that had been working on it kind of dropped it in a senate meeting and we were all very surprised at how much things were changing,” Larkin said.

Larkin said another critique was the idea that some students may have more representation than others or that their votes matter more. He said that he believes that the constitution is strong enough now to represent all students now, rather than making revisions.

“So if you are a bi veteran, Latino, in the School of Business, you have [multiple] senators and if you’re just, a white nursing student, you have one senator. Yes, some constituents have more problems, but that is a little awkward to have,” Larkin said.

Junior Madison Sample, Senator for the College of Arts and Sciences, Art and Communications, said she disagrees with that statement. She said there have been plenty of white straight cis male representation, and it is time to move towards more equitable representation.

“I think that, unfortunately, some students need more representation. They’ve been disadvantaged for a long time, and they need this step up to help get on the same playing field as everyone else,” Sample said.

Sample said she is very passionate about the amendments, as she believes it is something that could be good for not only the student government, but the student body.

“I think it’s important because, as senators, we can only do so much because we’re stretched so thin,” Sample said. “But to have a person who is dedicated to just one group or one issue, I feel like they can accomplish more because they can be more persistent, about getting certain things accomplished that other senator positions cannot because we have to do too many things.”

The constitutional revisions are not adding any new paid positions. Senators are unpaid positions, while students on the executive board are paid. Salau said that the only executive position being added is an Executive Secretary, but that position will not make any changes to the student government budget or student fees. This is because the position had previously been part of office support, but will now be an elected position.

“The executive secretary will now attend our meetings and take minutes, rather than just serving as office support, so there are no changes to paid positions within the student government office,” Salau said.

At the most recent senate meeting on Feb. 6, it was brought up to the senate to approve the constitution and that the new position be chosen by a committee. According to the student government constitution, if amendments are proposed, they must be presented at a scheduled meeting before being voted on at the next meeting.

Salau said that she brought up this idea because if it does end up on the ballot in March, there will be very little time to appoint the new senators before the end of the year. She said she wanted to introduce the idea of using a committee to induct the new senators to prevent implicit bias.

“A selection committee of me, the vice president and probably some other senators, executive members to choose to vote who the next senators will be,” Salau said. “The idea is that we could, even while applications are going on, or regular scheduled elections are going, could have those positions open for appointment.”

Salau said that even if the constitution revision ends up on the ballot, which she believes is unlikely, she trusts the student body to make the choice for greater diversity within student government.

Salau said that these constitutions are a chance for her, and the rest of the student government to leave their impact that will change student government for a long time.

“Senators definitely do a good job of it, trying to help people who are not members of their population. But I think there’s something better that can be done,” Salau said.

The next student government meeting will be at 6 p.m on Feb. 20 in the Goshen Lounge, where Salau said she is hopeful the amendments will pass, and the senate will approve the committee selection process.

02.01.23

A bush was on fire outside of the 400-wing of Cougar Village. An officer that arrived found that the fire was a controlled burn from Housing.

02.02.23

A pair of Beats ear buds were found in Parking Lot 12.

A traffic accident was reported in Parking Lot E.

An offensive sticker was found on a bulletin board in the 500-wing of Cougar Village. BIRT was notified. A credit card was found in the MUC.

02.03.23

A suspicious person was reported in the 400-wing of Cougar Village. The individual was with the U.S. Census Bureau.

02.06.23

Two SIUE computers were reported missing from Alumni Hall.

An SIUE laptop was reported missing from the Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center.

A mountain bike was reported missing on campus.

A laptop and a computer were reported missing from the Art and Design Building.

A traffic accident was reported in the Bluff Hall Parking Lot.

Assistant professor of educational leadership Candace Hall’s documentary “Clusterluck” discusses the Black leadership and community at SIUE.

Hall said she was inspired to produce her documentary by the fact that her department, the School of Education, Health and Human behavior, has a larger Black community than most. Across academia, Black people make up only 6 percent of faculty, Hall said.

“There’s one, maybe two, three is pushing it,” Hall said about how many Black people may be found within a particular department.

Within Hall’s department, there’s more. That is why Hall said she decided to make her documentary.

“The documentary is about community. What it takes to form community, cultivate community and sustain community,” Hall said.

Robin Hughes, the Dean of Education, Health and Human Behavior, helped form the community.

When Hughes first became dean of her department, she found $1.5 million for strategic hires. A strategic hire focuses on hiring African American, Latino and Indigenous people, according to Hughes.

With that money, she decided to do a cluster hire, which is a mass strategic hire.

“In business and higher education, you can do hires of groups of people that have a specific set of skills, or a specific set of accouterments that one may want,” Hughes said.

A main problem within education is that after strategic hiring, there is little work done to keep the recent hires according to both Hughes and Hall. Hughes said she tried to make sure that her recent hires stayed, but COVID-19 prevented her from continuing that.

That was when Hall formed an idea with her coworker J.T. Snipes to host socially distanced bonfires for their coworkers and their spouses.

“We thought about a safe way, you know, the bonfire became a safe way for us to gather. Right, like we could meet outside, we could be around a fire and not have to worry about the virus,” Snipes said. “And it sort of grew from there. Just this desire for us to be together to know each other, to support each other.”

Despite not being invited to the events at first, Hughes thought Hall should write or film about it. Hughes pushed her to share her story in whatever way she wanted.

“You don’t have to put out ideas through like journals,” Hughes said. “Journal articles that nobody reads. You could always use like film or some other media. Well, she jumped on it. I mean, it was like, right after COVID. She was out filming like she was, you know, the next Spike Lee.”

Hall originally had the idea for “Clusterluck” in 2021, but did not start the documentary until 2022. The whole process took nine months, during which she conferred with the director, Cami Thomas and the production team, about what she wanted to accomplish with the documentary.

The documentary features Hall and the community she has found at SIUE within her department. Some of her coworkers are present in the documentary, including Snipes and Hughes.

Before premiering at SIUE, Hall had the opportunity to share her documentary at the 2022 Association of the Study of Higher Education in Las Vegas, Nevada.

After a successful premiere in Las Vegas, the director of “Clusterluck” convinced Hall to enter it in film festivals.

“Clusterluck” was a semifinalist at the Indie Short Fest in Los Angeles. The documentary also won an award of recognition at The IndieFEST.

Hall described the feeling of winning these awards as “surreal.”

“When I first set out to make this documentary, I was making it for me. Even if it doesn’t go any further I want to be able to say I did it,” Hall said.

Snipes described it as inevitable.

“Dr. Hall is brilliant. And I’m glad that the world is starting to get a glimpse of her brilliance,” Snipes said.

Hall presented her documentary to SIUE on Feb. 2 in Dunham Hall. Hall’s family was in attendance, including her 7-year-old son, Avery Hall and his two siblings.

“It’s so cool,” Avery said about his mom’s documentary. “I can’t believe she made it.”

Following a showing of the documentary, there was a panel discussion featuring Hughes, Senior Advisor at North Carolina State University Joy Gaston Gayles, SIU System President Dan Mahony, Provost Denise Cobb and Assistant Dean Natasha Flowers.

During the panel, speakers discussed their impressions of the documentary and the importance of introducing and keeping community within academia.

Chancellor James Minor discussed bringing more clusters to SIUE. He said the usual practice is to hire someone one at a time and place them in a “sink or swim” environment. That’s where Minor wants to see a change.

“The social science says, you hire people in clusters.” Minor said. “You give them as much support as you can, and you could create conditions that support their success rather than test their ability to swim. So what we want to do is create environments that are welcoming and supportive here at SIUE. And I do think that that requires an inspection of our current practice.”

Mahony discussed how different types of work within academia can be far more impactful than some of the things typically done.

“This wouldn’t fit into most of our personnel review policies after merit, after tenure promotion,” Mahony said. “But yet, this has gotten us far more attention. It’s been far more impactful than most of the articles that I published in some peer-reviewed journal, but yet we’re not counting it. So how do we now think about doing that very differently?”

Within Hall’s department, there are several examples of non-traditional scholarship, including Angel Jones’s use of non-academic language within her articles and Snipe’s podcast “Blacktivism In the Academy.”

Minor discussed wanting to see different types of scholarships throughout the different departments within SIUE.

“I think the way it works in the School of Education, Health and Human Behavior may be very different in engineering and business, in the School of Dental Medicine,” Minor said. “So I think we have to customize the mechanics of such a program.”

After showing her documentary at SIUE, Hall is taking “Clusterluck” to Washington University in St. Louis for a showing Feb. 23.

“I’m really hopeful about what it can mean for our institution, but also what it can mean on a national level,” Hall said.

The Alestle will be on break next week, but will be back with our print edition Thursday, Feb. 23.

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