The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Academic Assembly last night set forth a new proposed set of bylaws that aims to combine articles and sections so that they are more easily understood by students.

"With the old bylaws you might have to look in three different sections in order to find what you were looking for," Academic Assembly president D. Joshua Troxell said. "We tried to make [the bylaws] more user-friendly so when it talks about membership, for example, everything about membership can be found in one designated area."

In addition, Troxell said the new legislation includes elements that are not mentioned in the current set of bylaws like recording minutes during weekly meetings.

"The previous tradition is now formalized," Troxell said.

The proposed bylaws include three different kinds of members that can serve on the assembly, Troxell said.

"There are the voting members from different colleges, non-voting members, and the third type of member is what we call the assembly staff, to follow through with certain duties," said Troxell.

He said the executive branch would be split into three positions, instead of two. The bylaws designate authority into more focused committees and departments that concentrate on specific projects and programs.

"Matters of legislative policy or position statements will be reserved to the voting membership and the assembly will be opened to the entire student body, giving a better opportunity to voice their concerns and get involved," Troxell said.

Laura Beck, chairwoman of the assembly's course evaluation committee agreed that the new proposal would increase student participation, but also thought it would enable students to express and relieve their concerns.

"The student body will be given more power to be involved in the assembly," Beck said.

"But on the other side, it will make the assembly a lot more efficient in handling student's current and future concerns."

She said this would be more feasible because student voices would be heard, and attended to by the committee to which the issue pertains.

"[The bylaws] are basically a reallocation of our resources," Beck added.

"They open up opportunities for social programs, like Take Your Professor to Lunch, and provide a more clear outline with how students can interact with the assembly," Beck added.

Assembly political committee chair, Bradley Hoagland, said the proposed bylaws would promote students' participation in assembly affairs.

"If [other students] see that we are actually getting a lot done, hopefully they will want to get involved too," Hoagland said.

He said the assembly's workload has increased and individual committees should be responsible for doing the "nitty-gritty" work, like the time-consuming first-year seminar surveys.

Committees would free up the assembly to deal with student concerns and programs, Hoagland said.

The proposed bylaws will be further debated on March 17, during the next assembly meeting.