Student Assembly

As amended and adopted on Thursday, 15 October 2009.

Whereas, the Preamble of the Student Assembly Charter states that the Student Assembly will “effect more extensive involvement in campus governance.”

Whereas, the Student Assembly seeks to further engage the undergraduate student community all issues relating to undergraduate student life at Cornell University.

Be it therefore resolved:

The following changes are made to the Student Assembly charter:

3.1 Composition

The SA will consist of 23 voting members, who are registered undergraduate students at Cornell University. Add: [Up to two additional votes shall be allocated to the entire community of undergraduates as a whole present at a Student Assembly meeting. Such community votes shall be allowed only as provided by the Assembly in its bylaws.] Eleven voting members of the SA will be elected by and from the student populations of the colleges and schools, one from each: the College of Architecture, Art and Planning; the School of Hotel Administration; the College of Human Ecology; and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

…and…

Add:

Bylaw 3.1.d (The Community Clause)

1. Should there only be one undergraduate ex-officio non-elected member in attendance, he or she will only be allocated one vote.
2. The community clause may only be exercised on final votes of sense-of-body resolutions pursuant to Bylaw 1.3.a.4, which excludes (1) funding and budgetary decisions, (2) amendments to the SA Charter and Standing Rules, (3) the ability to make motions, (4) creation/dissolution of committees (5) selection of officers, committee members, and liaisons from the popularly elected SA (i.e. allocation of the Student Activity Fee, SAFC appeals, approval of Parliamentarian, Liaison to the Provost, etc.).
3. At the beginning of each Student Assembly meeting, members of the community will present their Cornell IDs to the Parliamentarian, who will subsequently validate their status as undergraduates via the Cornell website. The Parliamentarian will record all undergraduate community members present within 15 minutes of the meeting’s call to order. Prior to the final vote of a resolution, qualifying members of the community will be permitted to cast their vote. The Parliamentarian will announce to the Assembly the collective vote of the gallery and liaisons prior to the casting of popularly elected members’ votes on any given sense-of-the-body resolution. Both community votes will be allocated to the side which has a simple majority.

…and…

Bylaw 4.1.b

A Parliamentarian shall be nominated by the President and affirmed by a majority of the SA voting members. The Parliamentarian need not be an SA member. The office of Parliamentarian holds no special voting privileges. The Parliamentarian also may not hold the President or Executive Vice President positions. The Parliamentarian shall advise the President on questions of parliamentary procedure. The Parliamentarian shall administer The Community Clause of the Student Assembly charter. The Parliamentarian shall count a hand vote to discern simple majority from the gallery, where all eligible voters sit in a designated area.

Be it further resolved that all undergraduate members of the Cornell community receive e-mail notification of this charter change following the passage of this resolution.

Be it finally resolved, that the implementation and impact of the community clause will be revisited by the SA at the end of the Fall 2009 semester.

Respectfully submitted,

Rammy Salem ‘10
At-Large Representative
Student Assembly, President

Ola Williams, ‘10
At-Large Representative
Student Assembly Executive Vice President

Roneal Desai ‘13
Freshman Representative