At the Student Association’s final assembly meeting of the year, SA honored its graduating members, discussed changes to the bylaws and elected the parliamentarian and speaker of the assembly for the next legislative session.

Prior to the official meeting, graduating SA members were presented with special chords and sashes. Each member was called to the Maxwell Auditorium stage and was asked to share their favorite SA experiences.

Eric Evangelista, SA’s president, has been a member of SA since his first week of freshman year. He said SA shaped his Syracuse University career and was thankful for SA’s hard work during this legislative session.

SA also held elections for the parliamentarian and speaker of assembly positions. The SA members elected to these positions Monday night will begin their term in the 61st legislative session.

Obi Afriyie, this year’s parliamentarian, was re-elected to the position. Sophia Faram, a freshman international relations major, was elected speaker of the assembly.

Andrew Regalado, a freshman political science major and previous speaker of the assembly, ran for reelection but was not re-elected.

Eddie Devino, chair of SA’s bylaw review committee, presented a revised version of the SA bylaws.

The revised version of the bylaws included a provision that requires all cabinet members to attend assembly meetings in the 61st legislative session.

The new bylaws also added provisions for the establishment of home college representatives. Home college representatives are assembly members who will be responsible for communicating with the constituents of their home college to identify, address and alleviate issues concerning their respective home colleges, according to the revised bylaws.

The home college representatives are required to meet with faculty within their home colleges at least once a semester to discuss initiatives, per the bylaws.

The restriction on SA election campaigning in Schine Student Center was lifted under the new bylaws. In the next election, candidates will be allowed to campaign in Schine and the first floor of Bird Library.

Devino said the idea behind the lifting of the restrictions is to encourage candidates to use Schine as an election hub.

“Students will be able to come to Schine to get some answers on voting for president and speak to candidates, ideally,” Devino said.

Candidates will still be prohibited from campaigning in the SA office and within 100 feet of libraries, with the exception of the first floor of Bird.

Joyce LaLonde, SA’s vice president, gave a report on updates to the Cycle Share program during Monday’s meeting. She said administrators she talked to are open to building a structure over the cycle storage area. LaLonde said she also discussed plans to introduce a wheelchair locking system so that students with wheelchairs can lock their wheelchairs while they use the adaptive cycles.

She also said students will be prohibited from renting cycles in the day of and the day after Mayfest each year. This year, she said some of the baskets on the cycles were removed, but added that they will be repaired.

The memorandum of understanding between SU’s Department of Public Safety and the Syracuse Police Department will be changed to accommodate students with mental health issues, LaLonde said.

Published on May 2, 2017 at 12:47 am

Contact Jordan: jmulle01@syr.edu | @jordanmuller18