Bakersfield College students will have the opportunity to vote on a new constitution and bylaws, written by BC’s own Student Government Association, during election week, which will be scheduled in early March.
According to Acting President Shelby Sward, SGA hopes the new governing documents will not only help the students of this semester, but also continue to lay groundwork for future students.
“This is the big centennial year so we are really looking forward to the next 100 years and how we can kind of set things up for the SGAs in the future to have a way to handle situations when they come up,” Sward said, explaining that she felt that SGA hasn’t been prepared for certain situations due to the way the documents are currently written.
Sward said the new constitution is a main priority for her this semester as she really hopes to get the process taken care of for the benefit of current and future students and SGA.
“In accordance with the Brown Act, we have to have it voted on by the student body, so SGA can’t just do whatever it wants,” Sward said. “We are going to let [the students] know what we think is best and we’re going to write up the constitution how we think it would be best for you, but at the end of the day we’re going to present the constitution at the elections and people have to vote on it.”
According to Sward, one main change will be an alteration to the election process. She explained that currently none of the senate has been elected by student body because of lack of student interest in becoming a candidate.
In hopes of achieving student interest and fair representation for the diverse population of BC, SGA has decided to create “Constituent Communities” in which the communities will each have two representatives.
According to Nathan Mayer, general counsel, SGA plans to draw the two representatives from each dean’s purviews, giving each department two senators. Sward explained that having this diversity in the constituent communities is in hopes of helping students to feel like there is someone in student government that can empathize and understand their needs.
Although the constitution is not completely finished, Sward explained that the work has already been done and SGA is just focusing on fine-tuning it. She said that the interim director of student life, Elizabeth Peisner, has already showed the draft to deans, who are excited about it as well.
According to Sward, Mayer has been a key player in the planning of the election and governing documents.
Mayer mentioned hopes of having a draft of the constitution ready for students to read at least two weeks before elections start.
“The problem is once we have it out, we can’t change anything,” he said. “Otherwise, we’d be lying to the student body basically.”
Students interested in getting involved with senate, or any other position in SGA, can pick up application packets as of Feb. 3.
“Anyone trying to apply for election has to go to a candidate’s meeting and you’re already supposed to have filled out the application packet by then,” Mayer said, explaining that students are urged to get the application process done as soon as possible, as there will be a deadline.
“People aren’t supposed to be campaigning until after they’ve had the candidate’s meeting because that’s when we tell them what they’re supposed to post and not supposed to post and all the rules and regulations.”