MSA constitutional convention postponed
No convention date has been confirmed.
Published Aug. 24, 2010
The Missouri Students Association constitutional convention will take place near the end of the fall semester, but no dates have been confirmed at this time.
The convention will be spread out across three separate dates. Each date will work toward improving the MSA Senate structure as well as the way the student body is represented.
"We are basically getting (MSA members and constituent leaders) together in a room and presenting them with how we run things now and then see if that is the best way to represent the students now," MSA President Tim Noce said.
During the convention, any interested student will also be able to speak and let MSA know their thoughts and recommendations on how he or she would like to be better represented.
"This convention gives us the opportunity to have a conversation with outside organizations and students that we would not normally get a chance to talk to," MSA Senate Speaker Evan Wood said. "We want to hear if the students think that they are being represented correctly."
Originally, MSA had planned for the first date of the convention to take place near the end of the 2009 to 2010 school year, but due to scheduling conflicts of the constituent leaders, student commitments and lack of rooms available for reservation, the convention was rescheduled for this semester.
All goals to improve the MSA Senate and student representation set during the previous convention dates will successfully be accomplished during this year's convention, Wood said.
In the past the MSA Senate was structured around student organizations such as Greek Life and religious organizations. As it stands now, the MSA Senate makeup is based upon academic college.
"Every MU student is in an academic college, but unfortunately, not every MU student is involved in extracurricular activities," incoming MSA Senator David Teeghman said. "The MSA Senate is supposed to represent all students equally, and senators from student organizations would mean that some students had more recognition and power than others. That seems unfair."
The idea of improving the way MSA represents students had been kicked around before and this convention will most likely lead to a change in the Senate makeup, two-year MSA Senator Garrett Bergquist said.
"The idea of representing students by academic college is fundamentally flawed," he said. "Seventy-one senators just cannot represent all students."