VUWSA President Seamus Brady has produced a set of constitutional amendments to be voted upon in August’s Annual General Meeting.
The proposed changes would see a reshuffle of several Executive positions and the movement of voting on Student Represent Council (SRC) motions online.
Notable amendments include a small reduction in the size of the Executive, with the merging of the Campaigns Officer and Activities Officer roles into a Vice-President (Engagement) position.
Brady hopes this “will allow VUWSA to place greater emphasis on improving our level of engagement with students and with the wider community. It will also give the person in that role a clearer structure to work within.”
Currently there is a constitutional requirement for at least two SRC meetings to be held during both trimesters one and two. This gives students the opportunity to debate pressing issues affecting them as well as wider society, and vote on motions which provide a (non-binding) direction to the Executive.
However, VUWSA failed to hold any such meetings during trimester one, claiming no students came forward requesting to hold one.
“Of course it was disappointing not having any SCRs in the first trimester. But the constitution allows for substantial compliance and will be rectified by holding more in the second trimester,” Brady said.
Should Brady’s amendments be adopted, this constitutional requirement would be reduced to a minimum of only one SRC per trimester.
“I am looking forward to the ones we have planned for this trimester and to their potential move online,” said Brady. “This will make them more relevant and worthwhile, as more students will be able to participate in them.”
The first meeting was held on 29 July, after this magazine went to print, and put forward the motion that VUWSA support the ‘Right to Education’ campaign in the West Bank, Palestine.
Its outcome, and further detail of the proposed constitutional amendments, will be covered in next week’s Salient.
Proposed constitutional amendments include:
• Renaming of Vice-President (Education) position to Vice-President (Academic)
• Removing Vice-President (Administration) and replacing it with a new position of Treasurer
• Removing Activities Officer and Campaigns Officer Executive positions and replacing them with the new position of Vice-President (Engagement)
• Allowing for the voting option of “no confidence” when there are fewer than two candidates standing in the positions of Publications Committee Representative and Student Representative on the University Council
• Moving SRC motion voting online