Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Constitution

Hello everyone! I wanted to discuss the content of the UNK QSA constitution with you. If you are new, you may be unaware that we even have a constitution. Well, we do! In order to become an official UNK group, you need to have a group constitution. We created this constitution a few years ago when we became an official student organization in 2008.

The thing is, the exec board has realized that the constitution has become rather faulty. On a basic level, there are many errors in grammar and sentence structure, which seems to negate its supposed professionalism. Also, the organization of the articles can be quite confusing. In the past, QSA has often disregarded the constitutional rules - not on purpose, but by accident due to the confusing nature of the instructions. It seems like the constitution's organization is so confusing that we were often breaking rules without realizing it. Also, the constitution has been known to be very vague when it comes to officer responsibilities, which makes the executive board members unsure of their duties and realms of authority.

It has come to my attention that there has been high demand for a constitutional rewrite. Usually, this process would involve a long drawn-out series of amendments that would take place at a QSA meeting. However, we don't really have that time. The kind of overhaul needed for the constitution would probably require at least five meetings alone.

To solve this problem, I have come up with an alternative plan. I have been working on a constitutional rewrite that I would like all of you to read. It says a lot of the same stuff as the old constitution, but it is reorganized to read more like an instruction manual instead of a series of vague statements.

If you click the download links at the bottom of this post, you will be redirected to two copies of the constitution: the original and the rewrite. I would like you to read them both and critically compare and contrast them. At a future meeting, I would like your input on the changes I have made. I want to know if you think this new constitution will benefit the group, and I want to see if you have anything else you think you would like to add or alter. I don't want to be the sole authority here - I want you to tell me what to do, so please feel free!

We will then either vote to adopt a new constitution or to keep the old one.

Thanks so much for your time, and I look forward to hearing your comments!

-Jenna

DOWNLOADS:
The Original Constitution
The Rewritten Constitution

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