Student Council still working on constitution

New clubs may now be proposed to Student Council again.

Last November, Uni’s Student Council (StudCo) halted the approval of new clubs in the wake of the Coding Club controversy. This freeze is now over.

Last fall, it came to light that StudCo did not have sufficient guidelines to deal with the question of whether two clubs with overlapping interests, Coding Club and Girls Who Code, could coexist.

StudCo sponsor Rick Murphy observed, “If nothing else, although it was painful to some people, the situation with the clubs […] taught us that we have to write things that will help future student leaders deal with situations.”

During the club-approval freeze, StudCo created a committee to work on writing a new constitution.

Victoria Kindratenko, the new executive president of the student body, said that the club policies are now done, “but the overall constitution for StudCo hasn’t been written.”

“It’s not fully finished yet, which is kind of sad,” said Collin Jung, the sophomore class vice president [correction: Jung is class secretary, not vice president]. “But we just had a meeting about it actually, so we’re going to start finishing that soon.”

Kindratenko said that the club-proposing process hasn’t changed much. “If you do want to propose a club, just go to the office and ask for a club proposal form,” Kindratenko said.

They have addressed the issue from last year, though.

“If there’s a club that’s really similar to your club that already exists, then possibly talk to them before coming to us with a separate club idea,” said Kindratenko. “This year that problem is being solved by just calling it […] the Coding Club instead of Girls Who Code.”

The overall constitution won’t alter much of StudCo’s procedures. “It’s not really changing, but just solidifying things that are already happening,” said Jung.

However, they hope that the new constitution will be clearer and “a little more…pertinent to what we do,” said Murphy.

Once the constitution is complete, they hope to publish it on the Uni website.

“I think our goal is to publish everything together, the constitution plus the guidelines to club proposals,” said Kindratenko. “But if we don’t get the whole constitution ironed out quickly, like hopefully by the end of the first quarter, then we’ll just probably publish the club proposal guidelines first.” She added, “But it really depends on what our teachers say.”

Murphy, one of the teachers, is encouraged by the determination exhibited by the current executive leaders. “They’re committed,” he said. “It’s one thing for an adult or a sponsor to want them to finish, but they’re committed to wanting to finish too.”