On April 23 and 24, the student body will be able to vote on two changes to the Student Government Association's constitution.
The first amendment would remove the speaker of the senate position, and all responsibilities and duties would be transferred to the vice president of SGA.
The second would raise the cumulative GPA requirement for senators and executive officers.
Mary Garcia, the current speaker of the senate, does not support the first proposal.
"The duties of the speaker and vice president are too much to put on one student," Garcia, sophomore business economics major, said.
Russell Born, the current president of SGA, said that having the vice president take over the duties of the speaker of the senate would save the SGA $10,000 in stipend payments.
"We've found a lot of times the vice president ends up taking the speaker role, so by eliminating the position we hope to have a stronger SGA," Born said. "If you removed the position, it frees up $10,000 and we could use that to give back to the students."
If the amendment passes, the money would revert back to the Student Activity Fee.
The second referendum would raise the cumulative GPA requirements from 2.0 to 2.5 for senators and from 2.75 to 3.0 for executive members.
"Had the new standards been in effect this past fall, only one senator would not have been able to continue," Dean Stephen Petersen, associate vice president for student affairs and advisor to SGA, said. "For the most part, those elected to serve in the SGA, both as officers and senators, are very good students."
Melissa Pankuch, senior art history major, is surprised the GPA requirement is as low as it is.
"Leaders on campus should be able to balance education and involvement," Pankuch said. "A 2.5 should definitely be required."
Petersen said the last vote to change the SGA constitution was approximately four years ago.
"Both of the proposed referenda came from last summer's retreat discussion," he said. "The SGA leadership expected that there might be some additional changes proposed, which never materialized, but this is the reason they delayed the voting on these two items until this spring."
Whenever there are proposed changes to the SGA constitution, they must be approved by a vote of the student body.
The changes to the constitution would take effect for the 2014-2015 school year; the 2013-2014 SGA would be unaffected.
To vote, students will use the same system used for SGA elections.
"Students can vote on their phones or from any laptop or desktop computer," Petersen said.
Students can view the current SGA constitution at
memphis.edu/sga.
