Students have a lot of perennial gripes with the Georgetown University Student Association. To say nothing of its annually botched presidential elections, in recent years the organization has grown more ineffectual due in large part to its size and many senators’ poor attendance. This year, however, GUSA has restructured its Senate, eliminating some representative positions altogether and adding four at-large representatives. Senators have also promised to enforce expulsion rules more strictly. With any luck, the change will help GUSA become less bloated and more representative of its student body.
By the end of last year, ten Senate seats had been effectively vacated by elected students who no longer wished to be members. GUSA, in response, delayed expelling the senators and holding the necessary special elections until April, leaving too many students without representation for months. The elimination of some Senate seats seems like an ideal way to nip this problem in the bud because it will invariably cut back on the number of students who can successfully get elected on a whim. Additionally, the cuts tended to be made in the most effective places: among underclassmen, whose representatives had some of the worst attendance.
The addition of four at-large members to the Senate is similarly an important measure to improve GUSA’s accountability. The senators would be elected by the entire student body, ensuring that the Senate’s numbers will not be reduced so much that it will not still adequately represent Georgetown students. More significantly, even with the addition of the at-large members, the restructuring will cut down the Senate by eleven representatives, lowering the number of representatives that must be present for quorum. At times last year the Senate was unable to make quorum, a problem that delayed the passage of funding for a campus service event and the re-establishment of the GUSA Summer Fellows program.
The credit for this reorganization belongs to GUSA Vice President Jason Kluger (COL `11), who urged changes based on a survey GUSA conducted over the summer. While his mandate may be a little shaky—only 898 students responded to the survey and the question on whose responses he justified the change was vaguely worded—Kluger has the right idea: GUSA can do more with less.
