PAGE FOUR Editorial 0 • inio Constitution Deficiencies The revised Constitution presented to SGA Assembly by the Reorganization Committee Thursday would make some long-needed changes in. the present system but also contains some glaring shortcomings and has a lot of word ing that needs to be ironed out The proposed Constitution would give Assembly more power, e.g. all other governing bodies on campus would be subordinate to it;. more purpose, e.g. Assembly could discuss and legislate on any topic of student concern; and more responsibility, e.g. Assembly would. with the advice and consent of the University Senate, establish regulations for student conduct. But, SGA would be liable to run into a lot of interpre tation difficulties in such phrases as "dealing with an all- University nature," and in the Elections Code, which leaves too much unrestricted power in the hands of the chairman. But the 'most glaring deficiency is in the proposed system of representation. According to Duane Alexander, the SGA Reorganization Cornmittee is already' working on a substitute measure. The trouble is that neither the basis for representation nor the method for elections are prescribed but are merely thrown into the hands of (and the control of) MRC, TIM, IFC and AWS. As a basis for representation these four groups would insure that every undergraduate at the University was represented because every undergrad comes under one of these four governing bodies. But the representation does not go far enough. In the case of MRC and AWS, representation should further be broken down into residence hall areas. The Constitution merely says that MRC shall have nine representatives and AWS eight. But all nine of the MRC representatives could come from the first floor of the south wing of Hamilton Hall. This would' leave no representation for North Halls, Pollock or Nittany. The same condition could exist within AWS with all the representatives coming from one area. The Constitution should outline the on-campus repre sentation specifically according to residence hall area, e.g. 3 for West, 3 for North, etc. The members of each residence hall area should vote only for the Assemblymen from their own area. This would present the most representative govern ment with each Assemblyman in closest contact with his constituency. Each elected ASsemblynian could then set up regular weekly meetings in his own area to hear all views on student government from his constituency. Here's government at its grass roots. As for elections procedure, letting this entirely under the control of the four bodies—VlßC, TIM, IFC and AWS— Is completely absurd. This would mean there could be four different ways of election to: Assembly. IFC might say only phys ed majors with a 3.8 average could run and TIM might say only those on Council could run for SGA. The Constitution must guarantee a uniform system for electing ,all Assemblymen. A Student-Operated Newspaper 56 Years of Editorial Freedom 111 r Tollrgian Successor to The Prge Lance, est. 1887 Published Tuesday through Saturday molting during the University year. The Daily Collegian la a student-operated new paper. Entered as second-clam mallet July 6. 1934 at the State College Pa. Post 4;)tflce under the act of March 1. 1119. Mall Subscription Pricer 63.00 pit semester $5.00 per year. Mailing Address Doi 261, State College, Pa. JOHN BLACK Editok .100D1' --- STAFF THIS ISSUE: Headline F,ditor, Vicki Wentz; Wire Edi tor, Dave Runkel; Night Copy Ed:itor, Polly Dranov; Assistants, Dot Drasher, Carmen Zetler, Triidy Rohrer, Arlene Lantzman, Steve Monheimer, Connie Ulerichland Joanne Phillippi. PFANth's IF I WANTED TO GO SO4hERACE, il (IFT -.. \‘ I'D LEAP INTO A TREE, AND WERE A GLUING FROM BRANCH TO BRANCH 1 GORILLA LIVING IN THE as. : . i t JUNGLE, I `ey , ,i ji ti WOULDN'T --. jri '' HAVE TO . 4-- • -----...„\ 14 )11%i . I ';',:; .---. •-... -, : 1 / 4 - --- L= 1 .,,,c„ .. ..i : reW-- 0 11 i i , •,,i, , , v k - • IL vs THE DAILY COLLEGIAN. STATE' COLLEGE.' PENNSYLVANIA Business Manager CHESTER LUCID° Letters Jr. Objects To Proposed Elex Code TO THE EDITOR: The elec tions code of the proposed SGA constitution is dangerously. un democratic. The power to nominate can didates for Assembly places in the hands of councils the pow er to deny a person the right to free and fair competition for a legislative position. Experience has shown that organizations such as the coun cils can easily become clus ters of self-interested people, pursuing ulterior motives. Councils .will .not .nominate persons other than those with interests and motives similar to those of the councils' leaders. To think for a moment that the councils appeal powers of the Elections Committee and the Supreme Court will pro vide the objective fairness which is the right of the con stituents is ridiculous. Members of Elections Com mittee and Supreme Court will fill those positions only after having scrambled through the lower prestige groups and will possess all the ulterior motives by which they have risen ob scuring their judgment and impartiality. The proposed elections code not only would provide the opportunity for the formation of such prestige groups, it would provide an incentive for them. The Assembly will be 1., more significant and representative group if each member is elect ed from the candidates after free and equal opportunity, the Assembly will be totally un representative if handfuls of prestige seekers nominate each other into office and pass legis lation to perpetuate their pow er. —Dennis A. Foranini, '62 Senior Discusses Reorganization TO THE EDITOR: Student apathy has not only been in creased but existing 'unconcern has been accentuated by the befuddled actions of "Prexy" Haber and his fellow status seekers of SGA. Reports filter out from se cret meetings concerning the "great progress" made toward the reorganization of SGA. But what do Haber's constitu ents get reorganization? No! Confusion? Yes! If Haber and his cronies real ly wanted to learn how to lead and to reorganize, why didn't they apply for Advanced ROTC, an organization which they are all too quick to ridi cule. Or can it be that Haber will enlist in the Peace Corps to contribute chaos to Laos? —Richard D. Biddle, '6l Gazette TODAY Alpha Kappa Pal, 7 p.m.. Phi Mu Delta Angel Flight, 5:30 p.m., 214 HUB As/metallon of the U.S. Army, 8 p.m., card room CHA Student Council, 8:15 p.m., 814 Bourke Central Regional Extension Conference, 8 a.m., to 5 p.m., HUB assembly room Communion Service, 5:15 p.m., Wes ley Foundation rducation Student Council, 6:45 p.m., 217 HUH ICG, 8 p.m., 203 HUH WC Career Hay, Service Committee, K p.m., 212 HUB 1 1 1 CF. 12:46 p.m., 217 HUB Graduate Club, 7 p.m., 215 HUH LA Student Council, 6:30 p.m., 212 HUB Newman Club, 7 p.m.,. HUB assembly room Nittnny Grotto, 7:15 p.m., 121 MI Panhel, 6 :30 p.m., 203 HUB Placement, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., 203 HUB Schuhplattlers, 7 p.m., HUB ballroom TIM Movie, noon, 6 p.m., HUB as3em bly room University Pasty, 9 p.m., 212 HUB West Balk Judicial, 12 :15 p.m., 217 HUB Young Republicans, 8 p.m., 218 HUB HOSPITAL Rosalind Gill, Joyce Leonard, Bar bara Maley, Cynthia DePalma, Virginia Howard, Margaret Padisak, Mary Sa bolsice, Diane Justin, Eugenie Rushem Judith Swain, Katherine Foor, Frank Vincente, Earl Ervey, Raymond Grif fith, Gerald Yarnell, Edward Moran, Alfred Ando, Thomas Reeves, David Kendall, Richard DiMarcello, Edward Small, Wendell 'Pass, William Wilkens, twit rriaa. D.A.Luteta. On Reorganization If the revised SGA constitution goes through the Assembly without change, political parties will virtually be destroyed and a path paved for a tight pyramid structure controlled at the top by such "in" groups as Lions Paw. As the constitution now stands, AWS, MRC, IFC and TIM will control the nomina tions for the 27 Assembly seats. Just how these groups are to conduct nominations is not specified. AWS could nominate nine blue-eyed blonds from Pollock 5 and ignore all other living The Elections Code, as it is now written, could make the committee head practically a dictator. Since we- have seen the incompetent performances of Robert Umstead and several others, we cannot help but question the intent of this sec tion. If the nomination for the As sembly is left to AWS, MRC, IFC and TIM, candidates may no longer have to take stands on major All-University issues, they may just need an "in." It may be ev-n more a matter of who you know and not what you can do. This new constitution also limits the number of persons who can run for one seat to two people and makes no provision for running by petition. There is no room for "outsiders." There is literally no reason to limit political parties' activ ity to the "top" positions and there are several reasons for them to continue to nominate the, assemblymen. Political .parties often could give the newcomer to student government his introduction to the issues with which it is con cerned. And, however slight this introduction may be, it is Letters Alexander 'Explains' Actions TO THE EDITOR: Recently the SGA Reorganization Com mittee has drawn considerable fire from the Collegian. The reasons for the committee's ac tions, although they have been explained to the Collegian and to Assembly, have not ap peared in print. Since the SGA Assembly, gave the committee an unani mous vote of confidence when these reasons were presented to it (another fact which was not printed), I feel the students should be informed so that they too may judge. When we began working on the constitution last fall, we were directed by SGA to work with the Senate Subcommittee on Organizational Control. Several weeks ago, when most of our ideas Were formu lated, we met with. the group with preliminary SGA discus sion scheduled. Other business lasted too long and it was de cided to see the committee members individually. I went over the whole con stitution with the authorities on Political Science and Par liamentary Law who are on the committee to be sure no necessary details had been omitted, but did not get to see the chairman. This is why he later said he had not seen the Constitution. But all of this was not reported. The meeting of March 16 was, as I told the Collegian re porter, to go it again with both student leaders and adminis trative personnel and check for flaws or small details we over looked. There was no intention of giving it approval or disap proval without having it ap proved first by the Assembly. But this is not what was re ported. Our committee meetings were held 'n confidence this is true. But we realized that we were dealing with the most controversial topic in student government, and that if only parts were revealed at one time, rumors could start that SGA was taking over all voups. and this could have TUESDAY. MARCH 21. 1961 certainly better than none at all. Political parties could screen out some of the least feasible proposals concerning an issue and possibly formulate a m 1 a sensible approach than could students in six different areas campaigning on six different approaches none of which would gain- enough support to pass. Student government might become more "mickey mouse" than ever on the As sembly level. Of course, members of poli tical parties do occasionally bring in new ideas that the "in" group might not like and we imagine this is part of the rea son for limiting them in the new constitution. We also cannot understand why the advisor to the student government should be the ex ecutive secretary to the Alum ni Association. The Alumni Association has very little to do with undergraduate student government. If the SGA must have an ad visor specified in the constitu tion then it should be the chair man of the Senate Committee on Student Affairs or the spe cial assistant to the President for Student Affairs. These men at least deal directly with stu dent affairs even thoug4 they may not be members of the Lions Paw Alumni. Mr. Alexander may have the greatest confidence in his pro posals. We, however, do not. —Nicki Wolford Elaine Miele Susie Linkroum killed the constitution. All the ideas are not only our own. We talked with stu dent leaders and old and pres ent Assembly members, and found out their ideas, whether they were aware of the pur pose at the time or not, and Collegian articles brought out other ideas. On several occasions I told the Collegian specific plans under discussion. The only thing secret was the discussion at the meetings. Remember also that the United States Constitutional Convention held all its meetings in secret, a factor to which many political scientists today credit the wis dom and success of the U.S. Constitution. As to the number of meet ings, we held three last semes ter and four in the six weeks of this one, three of which were sorority rush when the world itself stops. Besides, is the committee that meets most often the most efficient? Cer tainly not. No written reports were given to Rules Committee be cause that would have de stroyed the purpose of our con fidential meetings. However, Rules Committee has not re ceived any written committee reports all semester except those prepared for the Assem bly, and we did give the Chairman an oral report. Elections can be postponed if need be, _ and no confusion need arise. The final Constitu tion was submitted to the As sembly rather than any other group because our committee was set up by the Assembly to report to the Assembly, not to anyone else. When the Assembly heard these reasons, the committee received a unanimot. , - vote of confidence. We hope the stu dents will consider this also, but most of all we ask that the new Constitution be considered on its merits. —Duane Alexander, Chairman, SGA Reorgan ration Committee •Letter cut
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