Cavalier Daily Associate Editor Student Awareness. Increased student involvement in Council. Renewed focus on student councerns. These are the professed goals of the new executive board of Student Council, which held its first full session last night. Council is the main link between students and the administration and its job is to represent the interests of the student body as a whole. Students can approach Council with problems they hope to see addressed. Of course, with all this attention on what Council can do for the student population,students need some idea what it does in the first place.Since there is no Schoolhouse Rockthat can describe the function of Student Council in a catchy three-minute song (along with fun images of bills singing songs), The Cavalier Daily talked to members of Council and discussed the workings of the body as well as what the new executive board can do to improve Council and increase its benefit for students.
Changes for the coming year
The outgoing Student Council left a legacy for the incoming board in the form of a new Student Council Constitution. Among the administrative changes in the new constitution are ones that change the role of the new executive board. Under the new constitution, the new board loses its voting privileges, and the position of executive vice president will no longer be elected by the student body but will instead be chosen by the representative body.
The new executive board memebers said they hope to increase the communication and involvement of students with Student Council. Some of their goals include improving the Council's Web site, further automating the appropriations process and increasing publicity about Student Council resources available to students, such as scholarships.
Tilton said she would like to improve communication between Student Council and the student body, noting a desire to begin distributing newsletters that would provide information "about what exactly Student Council is doing, what legislation has been passed and what resolutions are out there."
One of the biggest goals Tilton hopes to work on is helping students realize that Student Council can facilitate communication between the students and the administration.
Tilton said the most important thing is for students to realize that Council is there to help them.
"I'd like [students to see] Student Council as an advocate for the student body and student concerns and in some places as a hub for any issues they have, whether it is about daily life at the University or long-term issues about housing and dining and safety and academic concerns about curriculum opportunities," Tilton said.
Patrick Lee, who worked closely with the Student Council is his position as president of the Asian Student Union, said he is confident the new executive board will improve Student Council and their representation of the Student Body, compared to past Councils.
"I see the new Executive Board improving Student Council because the people elected come from a background of activism rather than Student Council itself. They know more what it is like to be a regular student rather than just a member of Student Council."
Who's on Student Council?
Student Council consists of the elected executive board, an elected representative body and the appointed presidential cabinet, which includes committee members as well as various appointed advisors.
The new executive board includes Council President Lauren Tilton, Executive Vice President Melissa Warnke, Vice President for Organizations Catherine Tobin and Vice President for Administration Jack Wilson.
According to outgoing Student Council President Darius Nabors, the president is someone who spends his time meeting with administrators, listening to the student body's concerns, and, most importantly, coming up with ideas about how to improve student life at the University for the long run. Student Council President is essentially the go- between for Council and the administration.
According to Nabors, many of the ideas that are implemented go unnoticed by the student body, because they are not accomplished in one meeting and involve long-term planning
"I think the misconception is that... if you have a meeting scheduled for Tuesday night at six, then everyone is like 'well that is where the work gets done'," Nabors said."But what they don't understand is that there are other things that we do outside of the meetings."
The role of the executive vice president is to enforce parliamentary procedures at Council's meetings.
"The EVP runs the meeting, acts as the chair of the meeting, creates the agenda and makes sure that the different pieces of legislation gel with the bylaws," outgoing Executive Vice President Nick Jordan said.
The role of vice president for organizations is to oversee the appropriations process, the Student Activities Fair, office space allocations and the formations of new CIOs, according to outgoing VPO Anna Papova.
Papova said a good VPO should be able to communicate with CIOs, understand problems those groups may be having, give feedback to groups and be open to questions about appropriations.
The vice president for administration serves as a type of "internal consultant," according to outgoing VPA Jeff McLaughlin.The VPA continues and watches over any "projects that are going on from year to year things -- like the scholarship committee and the fundraising committee," McLaughlin said.
Student Council representatives, which compose the rest of Council's elected members, propose bills and resolutions, according to outgoing College Rep. Victoria Ingenito. Each representative is required to sit on one of the nine standing committees of the Council. These committees include Legislative Affairs, Diversity Initiatives, Student Life, Safety and Wellness, Student Arts, Academic Affairs, Athletic Affairs, Buildings and Grounds and Community Affairs Committees.
Student Council also includes a presidential cabinet of appointed officials. These include committee co-chairs and the administrative positions of chief of staff, director of University relations and chief financial officer.
While the chief of staff coordinates the committees, the director of University relations is in charge of publicizing Student Council events and activities, as well as gauging the student body's needs and concerns.The chief financial officer is in charge of the Student Council budget, Tilton said.
All cabinet members are appointed and chosen through an application and interview process.
So what do they do?
According to Diversity Co-Chair Ryan McElveen, committees serve as the origin of most of the ideas of the Council, and are where most of the body's work gets done. He said committeesaddress specific problems about the University are addressed and draft most legislation.
"Legislation is supposed to be born in the committees," McElveen said. "That's the most obvious way that students are affected by committee work."
McElveen said representatives serve as the link between committees and the Council. Although many ideas are born and developed in the committees, the committee chairs lack the ability to propose these ideas straight to Council and must rely on representatives to propose ideas in the forms of bills and resolutions.
According to Nabors, the difference between a resolution and a bill is that a resolution is just a "statement of opinion" that shows that something has Student Council's support, whereas a bill can create committees, by-laws or other things that "actually happen."
After being introduced, the bills and resolutions proposed in Council are "left on the table" for a week before being voted on.
"What then happens is we informally get together in small groups and talk about how to improve it and what kind of techniques we can use to implement it that are realistic and efficient," Ingenito said. "The idea is to get a resolution that is not only internally sound -- the facts are right and that it is a legitimize claim -- but also that it is really going to do good."
Ingenito said Council members also offer input about legislation from personal experience and talking to friends and other students at the University.
The most well-known function of Student Council is the appropriation of the money collected through the Student Activates Fees to CIOs around Grounds. Student Council allocates funds from a budget of about $600,000 to various CIOS that go through an application process. The process is dictated by a combination of rules set by the Board of Visitors and by Student Council itself, according to current VPO Catherine Tobin. According to Tobin, groups can apply for funding on an annualized or a rolling basis.
CIOs submit budgets, and then the appropriations committee members evaluate the requests, Tobin said. The executive board then looks over the budget that the appropriations committee reviewed and may approve the allocations.
Appropriations is a direct and visible link between the students, student groups and Council. Members of the new Council said they hope to strengthen this and other connections with the student body in the coming year.
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