Iona President Dr. Joseph E. Nyre approved changes to the Student Government Association constitution on Sept. 10, according to SGA President and junior Hannah McGowan.

The SGA Legislature passed the changes to both the SGA constitution and by-laws on Sept. 4.

The revisions to the constitution simplify the language of the constitution and adjust the wording to fall more in line with the way the governing board functions.

A major change to the constitution was the way in which clubs are represented in the legislature. Multicultural clubs, like the Black Student Union, Gael Pride, the Hellenic Society and Iona International will still report to SLAM and sororities and fraternities will still report to the Council for Greek Governance.

All other clubs who do not report to these organizations will no longer be representatives on the SGA legislature, but will attend a new governing board named Inter-Club Council. Media clubs, academic clubs and general interest clubs will now report to ICC meetings on Tuesdays and a student representative from the group will attend the SGA meetings on Thursdays to report what was discussed and what needs to be brought to the legislature.

The ICC legislature voted on who would become this representative at their first meeting. It was announced on Sept. 17 that senior Rebecca Lundgren, president of Colleges Against Cancer, would fulfill the role for the 2018-2019 academic year.

McGowan said that the ICC will allow club leaders to focus on the functions and needs of their specific clubs and give them a place to self-govern.

“This also frees up the legislature to focus on bigger picture discussions that affect the lives of students,” McGowan said.

Junior and president of Gael Pride Charles Bencivengo participated in the committee McGowan set up to decide what powers ICC would have.

“It’s important because it allows clubs to have a more equal vote,” Bencivengo said. “Because sometimes there would be a double representation and now SGA can be more about policy. Now when voting on things all the umbrella organizations will come together and SGA can be what it is supposed to be: a student government.”

President of the Karate Club, junior Damon Willingham, said that the Karate Club always had only one vote because it did not fall under an umbrella organization.

“Some clubs had two votes in a way because they had votes for CGG and their organization,” Willingham said. “It breaks things down so that everyone has the same amount of votes.”

In the vote, the legislature also changed the impeachment process for a member of the legislature. The previous process required the SGA advisor to gather evidence and make a decision on impeachment. If the student disagreed, the case would then be brought before the legislature. This meant that the legislature would not have any say in the impeachment process unless the student appealed, according to McGowan. The new impeachment process gives the case to the legislature immediately.

“It was important to change the impeachment process because it allows for the legislature to determine the outcome of impeachments [as] opposed to the SGA advisor,” McGowan said. “It is important that as students, we hold each other accountable. By bringing a petition of impeachment to the legislature first, students will be holding each other accountable and setting standards for student representatives.”

The changes to the constitution will also change the appeals process for impeachment. The advisor will no longer be a part of the appeals process, according to McGowan. The changes include a censure, or a public notification of impeachment which does not result in the representative being removed from the legislature. The legislature would need to vote and have a two-thirds majority to remove the representative.