SGA to amend bill to include Residence Life’s input

Putting miscommunication and profanity aside, St. Edward’s University Residence Life and Student Government Association have agreed to move forward with the creation of residence hall senator positions.

The new residence hall senators will represent students living on campus and meet regularly with residence directors.

Residence Life and SGA have both acknowledged that the new representatives will not interfere with the activities of the Residence Hall Association.

Dave Rozeboom, director of Residence Life, and Krista Heiden, vice president of SGA, both said that RHA has become more of a programming board and less of a governing body.

“The directing of student concerns has been phased out,” Heiden said, referring to RHA.

Rozeboom and his staff made suggestions to SGA, which they accepted and will add to the constitution.

“We couldn’t change anything in the bill, so we are going to pass a whole separate bill to amend the previous bill and include the suggestions,” Heiden said.

Some of the suggestions included accountability pieces, added representatives and regular meetings between representatives and residence directors.

Also, the representatives will have a different role than residence assistants because students living in their halls will take their concerns to the representatives, and the representatives will voice those concerns to the residence director.

“They’re not babysitters. They are there, in essence, to legislate and address student concerns,” Heiden said about the representatives. “RAs are more there to keep students safe and are the rule keepers of the residence halls.”

There will be nine representatives, one for each residence hall, and anyone living in the hall can run for the position.

Only students living in a residence hall can vote for their respective representative.

Elections will be held concurrently with freshman senator elections on EdWeb Sept. 22-29.

Although the new representatives will have the ability to draft legislation, any suggested bills or amendments will have to be discussed beforehand with Residence Life.

“Clearly, if they are going to do anything policy-wise, they are going to be talking to us,” Rozeboom said. “SGA won’t be dictating policy about Residence Life to Residence Life, but we sure can partner up.”

Last April, Residence Life requested that SGA rescind the bill that included the new Senate seats. However, it could not be done because the bill was already part of the constitution, which was approved by students during the SGA elections. After missed meetings and the use of an expletive in a SGA meeting by a senator, the issue was left to be dealt with over the summer.

Rozeboom said that SGA had passed legislation without communicating with his office, and that is what had caused the rift.

“It’s as if I came in and rearranged your kitchen,” Rozeboom said.

This relationship was mended after Marisa Walden Lacey, SGA advisor, and Heiden went to a Residence Life staff meeting during the summer and apologized for the miscommunication.

Rozeboom said that after the miscommunication last semester, there was perceived to be a bad relationship, when, in fact, the incidents were isolated.

“Residence Life and Student Life are both involved in student affairs,” Rozeboom said. “How could we not work together?”