UC Votes In Favor of Bylaws Rehaul

In what will likely be the first of many votes in an Undergraduate Council effort to revise UC rules, representatives voted in favor of a revision to a portion of the UC Bylaws governing the structure of Council committees at a general meeting on Sunday.

The Committee Bylaws Update Act, which passed with unanimous Council support, amends Article III of the 33-paged UC Bylaws in order to officially bring the Bylaws in line with the current structure and role of each UC committee.

“[The Bylaws] was outdated and did not reflect the structure and organization of each committee on the Council,” UC Rules Committee Chair Kevin H. Xiong ’17 wrote in an email to The Crimson.

The UC is made up of six committees. The Finance Committee accepts and approves grant applications for student groups, the Student Life Committee is charged with representing undergraduates to College administrators on student life issues, the Education Committee considers issues related to undergraduate education, the Student Initiatives Committee works both within the Council and with other undergraduates to develop initiatives, the Student Relations Committee publicizes Council activities, and finally, the Rules Committee revises the Constitution and Bylaws and oversees the UC referendum process.

Representatives from each committee met with the Rules Committee Friday to draft the legislation and identify potential improvements to the text of the Bylaws. Almost all of the changes to the Bylaws make the structure of the committees less rigid.

For example, what once was the Student Life Committee vice chair for college life and Committee vice chair for house life has been consolidated into two general vice chair positions and language specifying the procedure for the Student Relations Committee was entirely dismissed.

The revision of the Bylaws to accommodate the recent such recent restructurings may be the first of many changes to the UC Constitution and Bylaws in the coming months.

According to Council updates sent over the UC general email list Sunday night, the Rules Committee will discuss potential changes to the mission statement of each committee this Friday.

“The goal is to make [the Constitution and Bylaws] more readable [and] shorter,” said Xiong during the meeting, referring to the fall semester push on the part of the Rules Committee to improve the Constitution and the Bylaws.

The Council also briefly discussed the status of the “We The Crimson” initiative which is now on “pause,” according to Student Relations Committee Ava Nasrollahzadeh ’16. Nasrollahzadeh said to the Council that with the recent transition in College administrative leadership she was looking to reconnect with the administration about the initiative.

The initiative, which was launched in last November, allows students to vote on petitions suggested by students on an online portal. The top three petitions each month are presented to College administrators for review.

The UC also approved more than $15,000 in Large Venue Grants funding at Sunday’s meeting.

—Staff writer Steven S. Lee can be reached at steven.lee@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenSJLee.