This Tuesday, students will have a chance to vote on a referendum to give the First-Year Council president and the transfer student liaison a vote in Student Council next fall.
Currently, new transfer students and first years do not have their own elected, voting representatives on Council, though the FYC president and the liaison both are allowed to participate in voting representative discussions. Supporters of the referendum gathered more than 900 signatures, thereby ensuring that the proposal would be put to a vote of the student body.
Under the proposed referendum, the liaison and the FYC president would be given votes only during each fall semester.
Council Chief of Staff Noah Sullivan, who served as FYC president last year, said he supports the idea.
Sullivan said first years and transfer students have unique interests and experiences that should be reflected in Council, adding that the current inability of the FYC president to vote, make motions or propose amendments precludes him from the most effective representation.
"It was like I was a fly on the wall" last year, he said.
At a meeting last Tuesday, Council President Daisy Lundy also said she supports the referendum.
Yet others on Council have questioned the idea and the process of getting it on the ballot.
Critics of the idea have said because the FYC president and the transfer student liaison could be members of any school, the proposal would disrupt the school-based balance of representatives on Council.
For example, Ronnie Mayhew, last years' Council executive vice president, said in a letter to Council that, "depending on what school the FYCP and the TSL are in, the number of voting representatives for that school would increase by one or two, jeopardizing the proportional representation scheme of the Constitution."
Sullivan disagreed, noting that members of Council's Executive Board already can come from any school.
"It does not threaten the structure of Council as much as people say," he said.
Critics also have argued that the FYC president and the liaison would not be good representatives of students in their respective constituencies because they are not selected through direct elections.
"Another reason we should all be wary of an attempt to give the FYCP and the TSL a vote on Council is because of the way each is selected," Mayhew said in his letter.
Currently the transfer student liaison is selected through an interview process, while the FYC president is selected by the members of FYC, who are chosen by halls in first-year dorms.
Sullivan suggested the idea of creating an election for the liaison to address this concern.
He added that, given the difficulty of having newly-arrived students participate in an election, the indirect selection of the FYC president is reasonable.
"It's really the best we can do, given what we are dealing with," Sullivan said.
FYC President Greg Jackson, who led the effort to gather signatures in support of the referendum, was unavailable for comment last night.
Transfer Student Liaison Tom Gibson said he would have preferred for the measure to have been considered at greater length by Council rather than brought up as a referendum this semester.
Some in Council have complained that they did not find out about the referendum until the signatures were submitted on Sunday.
"A lot of people in Council were really upset about it," Gibson said.
Both Gibson and Council Executive Vice President Rebeen Pasha said they were unsure on whether they would support the referendum.
"As the TSL, I wasn't even sure if I was for it," Gibson said. "I'm not going to comment on the referendum."
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