IUSA addresses lack of attendance

During its first meeting of the year, the IU Student Association Congress was powerless to vote or make decisions as a unified body because too many people skipped meetings. \nAs a rule, to vote on or pass legislation, IUSA Congress must meet quorum, a two-thirds showing of the 62 elected representatives. \nSince the beginning of the semester, three official IUSA Congress meetings have taken place -- the same number of meetings representatives are allowed to miss before they are removed from their seats. During Tuesday's meeting, if legislation allowing the replacement of absent representatives is passed for the year, 12 members of IUSA Congress will be removed from their positions. \nHowever, these numbers are nothing new, said Courtney Thom, IUSA vice president of congress. More than half of the representatives were removed last year for missing more than three meetings. \n"Throughout the year there were 39 replacements," she said. "Sometimes the replacements would be replaced ... it's always been an issue." \nThom said the most common reason for the attendance issue is scheduling \nconflicts. Often when students run for the position in the spring, she said, they do not know what their fall schedules will look like. \nThe time and day of congress meetings is determined by the winning team of executives after the election takes place. \nIUSA Speaker of the House Laura Maul said the way students are required to run for congress might be the root of the problem. \n"There is one major change that could potentially fix the attendance problem," she said. "The general reason why we have these problems with attendance is because people that run for the positions don't care about those positions."\nWhen a group of students decides to form a ticket, she said, they must recruit 62 people to run for congress on their ticket, even though congress representatives are elected on an individual basis. Recruiting these people means the ticket gets more campaign support, but after the election is over, elected representatives must show up at congress meetings, regardless of whether or not the ticket they ran on won. \n"The problem is that the executives try to fill up all these seats with people that may be their friends or people they have barely met," she said. "And they tell them about IUSA and maybe it sounds cool, but they may not understand the responsibilities." \nMaul said she believes separating congressional seats from executive tickets would boost attendance, but it could be difficult to implement the change. \n"That's a pretty radical change," she said. "It's not something that a lot of people are going to want to accept initially."\nAssistant Dean of Students Stevan Veldkamp , who has met with Maul and Thom to discuss the issue of attendance, said the responsibility of implementing these changes rests entirely upon congress members voting for them. \n"It is up to the IU students and congress to decide the best way to structure the process to ensure the most active congress," he said in an e-mail interview. "All it would take is a congress member drafting an amendment to their bylaws and election procedures."\nThom said the current policy on absenteeism could lead to positive change because the students who take the time to fill out congress applications are generally the most involved, but she recognizes the need for change. \n"It was kind of an eye opener not to meet quorum the first meeting of congress all semester," she said. "It's an issue I'd like to address." \nThose interested in applying for a position can receive an application from the IUSA office in room 387 of the Indiana Memorial Union. Students can apply for a residential position, such as a dorm or off-campus housing, or can apply to represent their academic schools.