Students could see significant changes to how Student Senate senators are elected in 2010.
Student Body President Kyle Malinowski said he hopes to implement a “Jump Start Program” as part of the senate reform he and the other blue ticket candidates promised during the election.
“Right now every 150 people get a representative in senate,” he said. “We want to have senators elected from six major demographics: residence halls, greeks, student-athletes, singles, all six colleges and student organizations.”
Although Malinowski will be making the plan public at Monday’s senate meeting, he said the plan will not be voted on yet.
“We originally wanted to get it done by this year, but we decided to spend some time talking to students,” he said. “We also want to sit down personally with all six colleges, the Association of Residence Halls and others affected by the change to make sure the new system is compatible with them.”
Malinowski said he thinks it is important to get the approval of the student body.
“If you are handed down a rule that you don’t like or that you had no say in making, there could be some kind of rebellion against that rule,” he said. “We are trying to prevent that.”
In order for these changes to be implemented, a constitutional amendment would be required, Malinowski said.
“There is an article specifying how elections are run and we want to replace that article with an entirely new article,” he said. “We’re going to attack this problem all at once.”
Malinowski said he hopes to gain support from students and organizations by informing them how they would benefit from the plan.
“Myself, the exec. board and the other student body officers are going to personally meet with all parties that will benefit from this,” he said. “Big organizations as well as small organizations will be helped by this.”
If after talking to the student body and student organizations and discovering they are against the change, the plan would be re-examined, Malinowski said.
“We will never do anything the student body doesn’t want us to do,” he said. “If it comes through that the rest of Bradley does not want this, we will take a step back and look at the plan again. If student body officers do something wrong it’s our responsibility to listen to what is being said and change if necessary.”
Malinowski said one way of gauging student opinion of the Jump Start Program next year could be through surveys.
“Former secretary Lisa Beltrame wants to do opinion polls of the student body and we are strongly encouraging that,” he said. “We can’t operate efficiently if we don’t know what the student body wants and so next year we will challenge the Edge and the Scout to help do them.”
When the plan is proposed for a vote either late fall or early spring it could require a two-thirds majority to pass, Malinowski said.
“If we want it passed on the same day we propose it we will need the two-thirds,” he said. “If we wait a week and give everyone a chance to look it over we will only need a majority.”
