Putin totally agrees with executive bodies having total revision power over the rules which govern them.

This year, SGA revises its constitution. This week, they revise the procedure for revising, among a few other policies. What does that even mean? Mia Lindheimer tries to find out. 

This week’s SGA meeting opened with a presentation from Abby Porter (CC ’17) of Coalition Against Sexual Violence (CASV), a Columbia club with zero members from Barnard. They’re trying to get background checks on undergraduate TA applicants to ensure those who have been found guilty of gender-based misconduct are not placed in TA positions. The movement was sparked by a Spectator feature  highlighting the impact of allowing such students into leadership positions, including TA and RA positions. So far, RA applications must agree to a background check via FERPA waiving for this purpose, but TA positions are more open. CASV is attempting to change the TA background check policy to specifically ban students who have been found guilty of gender-based misconduct from positions, regardless of how long it has been since the misconduct took place.

The policy is exclusive to undergraduate TA’s at all four of the Columbia undergraduate schools, simply because many graduate students are required to hold a TA position to complete their graduate program. To enact this change, CASV is going to each of the undergraduate student councils to lay out their plan, goals, and reasoning, in hopes of connecting with the deans of each school who can in turn create school-wide change.

SGA was happy to try and help CASV connect with Dean Hinkson along with other deans at Barnard to try and help CASV out. They were curious as to why CASV didn’t have any Barnard members, to which Porter replied enthusiastically that CASV is looking to get more Barnard representation in their club. @Barnard students who were nodding along with all that was said above, check out CASV every other Sunday (email casvatCU@gmail.com for more info).

The second half of the meeting consisted almost entirely of constitutional review jargon and quick flips between slides, making it nearly impossible to tell what was being changed, but everyone obviously still agrees most changes were necessary and correct.

Basically, a bunch of changes were made to how to make changes on the constitutions and at Barnard overall. The first changes consisted of general guidelines making the referendum process much clearer for potential referenda proposers. Essentially, SGA wants students who want to propose a referendum to be able to figure out exactly how to do so. The second changes were amendments to amendments; one giving the Constitutional Review Committee a name (congrats, guys!), and another introducing a controversial policy that would push any constitutional amendment proposals between constitutional review years to the next review year. The CRC claimed this was simply so changes made had time to run their course before being changed again, but critics at the SGA meeting were curious about special circumstances that were time-sensitive. So, that isn’t a concrete rule yet, and they might revisit it later. To be continued?

In other news:

• There’s an open discussion on dealing with micro aggressions in the classroom tonight at 6:30 in the Ella Weed Room (223 Milbank).
• “The reps” will get together tomorrow to talk about general and summer housing policies on Thursday from 9-10pm (your input is encouraged).
• Also, if you’re tryna get on the barnard2019 insta…well, you can’t do it yourself, but have a friend nominate you for Barnard Snaps.
• Don’t forget to check out the Quality of Life Survey that was released this week, so check that out, along with the two surveys that were attached in the email, which you can take now! The first is the Columbia Recreation Survey (if you’re opinionated about Dodge) and the second is Morningside Student Space Initiative (if you’re opinionated about the vacated Uris space).