Administration approves new Union constitution

After five months, Boston University administrators finally approved the revised Student Union constitution Friday.

The Senate and seven college governments ratified the constitution in May, placing the document in control of the Dean of Students Office and the Student Activities Office. Both offices considered the document over the summer but did not come to a decision until a final strategy session held Friday.

Union President Carl Woog said he was pleased the document received approval and everyone contributed to the final decision.

“The dean of students and I wanted to have everyone in the room at the same time to announce the big conclusion and to discuss the process of implementation of the document,” he said. “So we had an open brainstorming on how to prepare a future budget and we decided that the Student Union is going to work together this year and not spend further time debating this particular document.”

Acting Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore, Assistant Dean of Students Allen Ward, SAO Director Carolyn Norris, Assistant Director of Student Activities Jeffrey Murphy, SAO Programs Coordinators Allison Coutts and Mindy Stroh, SAO Financial Administrator Kevin Harrington, Union Executive Vice President Remie Ferreira, VP of Financial Affairs Joe Rollin, Senate Chair Joel Fajardo, Elections Commission Chair Olga Romanova, Programming Council Chair Mike Pereira, Service Council Chair Leia Yoon, Student Allocations Board Chair Diana Zito and Senior Tribune Nayan Ranchhod all attended the meeting with Woog, he said.

Woog said current Executive Board members would hold their positions for the rest of the year and that positions in the new constitution would not go into effect until spring elections. However, Woog said the current e-board would use this year to create a budget for the 2004-2005 Student Undergraduate Fee.

“We are left to determine the process of how to efficiently distribute the ’04-’05 budget to ensure the highest quality of student governance and event programming for future students,” he said.

Fajardo said he did not feel the new constitution would cause immediate problems to his revised Senate bylaws.

“The bylaws are nearly complete at this point,” he said. “This set of bylaws is applicable to both the current constitution and the upcoming constitution; however, when the new constitution takes effect a few small changes will have to be made.”

Fajardo said he believed he would be ready to bring the new bylaws to the Senate floor at the first Senate meeting on Sept. 22. Fajardo also said he felt confident the bylaws would obtain the simple majority vote of Senate needed to pass.

“The new bylaws should be ready by the first Senate meeting,” Fajardo said. “They will be presented to the Senate at that point, and they will be passed by the second meeting.”