The Student Assembly has made fundamental changes to its bylaws during the first few weeks of the semester, prompting the governing body’s Office of Ethics to vote on the ethical implications of passing such resolutions.
Resolution 2: Executive Governance Reform — presented and passed during the assembly’s initial meeting on Aug. 29 — established new “deputy” positions to which current officers may appoint a new member and merged three leadership groups (the executive board, cabinet and committee) into one executive board, among other wording changes.
The executive board asserted that the changes were meant to make the assembly more transparent and organized, but the altered bylaws have spurred disapproval over both the changes themselves and the way in which they were passed.
Sophia Arnold ’25, director of the S.A. Office of Ethics, told The Sun that her office had received complaints about the resolution, which was passed without discussion during the approximately 15-minute-long public meeting at the end of August. Resolution 2, along with Resolutions 1 and 3, was included under the meeting’s consent agenda, which generally consists of noncontroversial topics that do not require detailed discussion.
According to Arnold, The Office of Ethics voted on Sept. 1 that the passing of Resolution 2 was “unethical.”
“Even if it’s ‘pending adoption,’ the implementation of [Resolution] 2 in the meantime is even more unethical,” Arnold wrote to The Sun.
Arnold said that the resolution violated the bylaws themselves, pointing to Article X, which states that the bylaws may be modified so long as the amendment was submitted during the previous regular meeting.
S.A. President Zora deRham ’27 said she had sent the current assembly emails throughout the summer about the changes prior to the Aug. 29 vote. According to deRham, assembly members could ask questions after the first assembly meeting, but no one raised any concerns about the bylaw changes during that time.
“I was under the impression that it was something that — since no one had any questions about [it] and everyone voted in favor of [it] — everyone was fine with,” deRham said.
Two formerly independent offices — the Office of the Student Advocate and the Office of Student Government Relations — now fall under the president’s office. OSGR Executive Director Hasham Khan ’26 was not aware of the office’s absorption until the beginning of this semester. Khan told The Sun that he plans to petition for his office to regain its independence.
“It was just an unusual change,” Khan said. “For the time being, I think it would work best in the interest of OSGR and the president [of the assembly] to work a little independently.”
DeRham explained that the shift was meant to bring the organizations closer together, as they had become less communicative in recent years.
“I do not seek to change the way that those bodies operate internally,” deRham said. “I believe that placing OSGR and OSA under the Office of the President provides easier and quicker and more direct lines of communication between them and us than existed in the past.”
Aside from Nicholas Maggard’s ’26 swearing in as deputy president, no items on Resolution 2 were discussed prior to its unanimous passing during the meeting on Aug. 29.
At the end of last semester, the S.A. adopted a new timeline for passing resolutions, which allows members at least two weeks to read and consider proposals before conducting a formal vote. According to deRham, this change was meant to address the rushed nature of past assemblies, avoiding passing resolutions the day of their first reading.
The executive board had worked on the first resolutions in June, Maggard said. S.A. meetings during the summer are generally not permitted unless there is a pressing matter to be dealt with — an issue that was raised in complaints to the Office of Ethics.
However, Office of the Assemblies Director Jessica Withers explained that in some cases, according to the assembly’s governing documents, some resolutions may need to be drafted outside of the academic year.
Claire Ting ’25, who served as S.A. executive vice president last year, discussed how summer meetings were necessary due to major power transitions during the year she held the position.
“That being said, the assembly has historically had issues with transparency. I’m of the belief that if you were to make fundamental changes to the way the assembly operates, all stakeholders should be, at the very least, informed,” Ting said. “Given that the majority of the assembly this year are either entirely or relatively new, I think further discussion with the broader assembly should have been had.”
Deputy positions, according to Ting, had been considered but never enacted in previous years. The implementation of these deputies stems from past instances of officers relying on unofficially appointed people to help complete their broad range of tasks.
“Officers have always had people that they rely on to help them with their responsibilities. … Before, they would rely on friends to help them carry out those responsibilities,” Maggard said. “So in order to make things more transparent in the Student Assembly, we actually codified this.”
DeRham reiterated that changes were meant to organize the assembly.
“It definitely adds more structure and organization to an otherwise discombobulated executive branch of our student government,” deRham said. “Now there’s an opportunity for more people to be involved to ensure that everything runs smoothly and in a timely manner.”
Maggard — who was nominated by deRham — will serve as Deputy President, now the third-ranking member of the assembly.
“That’s just super undemocratic, because people vote for the [president] and [executive vice president], right? All the e-board positions are internally elected by the assembly,” Ting said. “So for [Maggard] to just be appointed [ranking member] three does not sit well with me.”
Nicolas Jaimes ’27 was nominated by the president for the role of assistant president for policy. Kathy Liu ’26 will serve as deputy vice president for internal operations, and Flora Meng ’27 as deputy vice president of external affairs. No member has been appointed to a deputy position under the office of diversity and inclusion.