Laura Bucio
Staff Writer
The Associated Student Federation Forum is continuing its transition from an activities organizer to a more politically active body and is currently holding open forums to receive feedback on its newly revised constitution.
The transition began in spring after the creation of the Campus Activities Board, which focuses solely on campus activities. ASF’s new goal is advocacy.
“We have two separate focuses,” said ASF President Dana McJunkin. “We are trying to make a constitution where people are held accountable.”
The new constitution was written with influence from other student government constitutions including several colleges in the area.
“It was a lot of working together and looking at what worked and didn’t work” McJunkin said.
In accordance with the agenda, ASF is currently working on a second draft of the constitution, after receiving feedback from faculty and staff.
Major changes were presented in forums on Nov. 14, 15 and 16 with the hopes of receiving feedback from students.
“We just really want feedback from students right now,” McJunkin said. “We just want them to come and hear it.”
The structure of the organization will also change. The organization will now consist of the president and executive vice president, who will be elected by the student body. The president and vice-president will then select their executive board with a 2/3 majority vote of the senate.
“We want to make sure there is check and balances,” McJunkin said.
The executive board includes a vice president of finance, who will be responsible for maintaining funding for the organization and vice president of communications who’s primarily responsible for public relations and record maintenance.
There is the addition of the Senate Pro Tempore who is elected from within the senate to represent them in different committees, the senators at large, who are elected by traditional undergraduate students and the senators from each University undergraduate college, who are elected by students of that college.
ASF also added a number of committees, including the Campus Center Advisory Committee.
“This would be the voice of students to administration about the new campus center,” McJunkin said, “We want to have student voice in it constantly.”
Other committees include the Bookstore Advisory Committee, Finance Committee, Judicial Affairs Committee, and the Campus Activities Board.
“It’s going to be a lot better, and advocacy is going to be great,” said sophomore accounting major Diana Westmyer.
There is also the addition of the student bill of rights, which outlines basic rights for students at the University.
ASF will also be changing their name to the Associated Students of the University of La Verne or, ASULV.
“It is the most opportune time to change our name because we’re coming up with a new organization,” McJunkin said.
The new constitution is expected to take effect early next semester and the transition should be complete by July 2006.
Laura Bucio can be reached at lbucio@ulv.edu.
Journalism operations manager at the University of La Verne. Production manager and business manager of the Campus Times.