While Jordan Heinz and Anil Hurkadli are battling for students’ votes in the executive vice presidential race, senators are scheduled to vote tonight on a bill that would take the selection out of students’ hands.
Senators also will debate major changes to student group guidelines that would make student group recognition harder for existing groups and easier for those just starting up.
The student in charge of all the groups — the executive vice president — would be appointed by a committee composed of Associated Student Government leaders and one administrator.
“The job is technical enough and requires enough knowledge of the inner workings of ASG that the candidate should be selected rather than elected,” said Michael Faber, ASG’s former secretary-parliamentarian.
But Hilary Zalar, current executive vice president, said students’ input in the selection is necessary.
“I can’t imagine they wouldn’t want to have a say in who oversaw (student group leaders),” said Zalar, a Weinberg junior. “We would be dumb to ignore their voice.”
Faber said he would be willing to include input from student group leaders in the process, although currently the bill doesn’t have any provisions for students’ choice.
If the revised student group guidelines pass, the executive vice president would oversee fewer organizations. The Senate would grant some C-status groups T-status, for temporary status.
T-status groups would receive the same privileges as C-status groups, but only informal groups would be granted T-status. Well-established groups would have to apply for B- or A-status.
C-status groups receive legal protection from Northwestern and can use university buildings for meeting space. Beyond these benefits, B-status groups can reserve rooms in Norris University Center, use ASG office space and advertise in the Here & Now section of The Daily. A-status groups are the only ones that receive university funding.
Zalar said too many student groups received C-status this year, including Purple Haze.
But Laurel Dearborn, general manager of Purple Haze, said the group applied for C-status because it had trouble reserving rooms on campus. However it sought to avoid A- or B-status because it didn’t want ASG to oversee their finances, a factor in several other groups’ derecognition.
“It would be really helpful if we could be affiliated with the university without having our money controlled by ASG,” Dearborn said. “That’s disappointing because there’s not so many options available to us.”
Other decisions Senate is scheduled to debate include:
a new “group infrastructure” requirement in the student group guidelines that examines its executive board’s internal relations. Zalar said the change would improve communication between the group and ASG.
“We had a couple of student groups where the president stepped down, the group hates each other, they’re on probation, there’s blatant miscommunication,” she said.
a new system of deciding group recognition with a majority vote, rather than an average of its scores. Members of the Executive Committee rate each student group on its performance in several areas. The proposed change would prevent some members from dramatically lowering some groups’ averages.
