The Boston University Student Government Senate voted to approve a constitutional amendment Monday evening that would change the voting requirement of the Judicial Commission from a two-thirds majority to three-fifths due to an increase in the number of judicial commissioners.
During the discussion, College of Engineering Sen. Piergiacomo Cacciamani proposed an additional change to that amendment — that in the future, members of the Senate must provide some explanation to their fellow senators if they decide to leave the Senate.
The amendment, which also proposed to strike all references to the Residence Hall Association from SG, was created in light of the departure of RHA over the summer.
“[The amendment] is not to fix the problem, but just for the other senators to know why one of his [or her] colleagues decided to drop out,” Cacciamani said during the meeting.
After several other amendments and additions to the initial proposal, the amendment passed with 13 yea’s, five nays and four abstentions.
The amendment was first proposed last meeting and the vote was tabled until Monday’s meeting.
Senate also confirmed cabinet chair positions during their meeting — College of Arts and Sciences Sen. Daniel González was confirmed as the financial chair with zero nays and one abstention.
CAS Sen. Shivansh Chaturvedi was confirmed as the communications chair with one nay and no abstentions.
Before the vote, the CAS sophomore said he hopes to “increase the visibility of student government members” and “[reach] out to students about issues they care about.”
The two new chairs commented on the amendment after the meeting — González, a sophomore, said he is looking forward to the position, and the amendment on the letter of notice is important because it leads to unity among all colleges and student groups.
“[Student groups who chose to leave SG] should give some sort of rationale because Senate, right now, is one of the only organizations that shows unity across the board for all student groups,” González said.
Chaturvedi gave a similar comment.
“Justifying [a departure] would not only be like give us like peace of mind, but it would keep a record for future generations of students of what went wrong, how we can prevent it and why a certain group left,” Chaturvedi said. “It can cause confusion at times.”
During the meeting, Interfraternity Council Sen. Lucas Radoccia pitched an idea to improve the BU Shuttle. He suggested a competition to get students throughout the university to find a solution that betters the BUS, and propose it to the Senate.
Radoccia, a junior in the Questrom School of Business, said after the meeting that his proposal represents what the Senate embodies.
“The Senate’s job is to do tangible things that benefit the student body,” Radoccia said. “We can solve the issue of the timing of the BUS, which is a total problem here at BU and something that’s easily fixable.”
SG Senate Chair Daniel Collins said after the meeting that this initiative will take a lot of work.
“It’s feasible,” Collins, a junior in CAS, said. “A lot of people in Senate will be put to work, which is good.”
The Senate spent the rest of the meeting taking individual photos for their website.
