Membership selection is under way for the commission Undergraduate Student Government (USG) President Galen Foulke has created to review the constitution and structure of USG.

When Foulke campaigned last year, the independent commission was among his top platform goals, but he said planning the commission has taken several months to work out the details. "This is absolutely one of the reasons I ran for USG president," he said. "To put the question to the student body, 'Are you happy with USG?' "

He said his experiences on the USG Senate last year alerted him to pitfalls of the current USG constitution.

"As a senator last year, I was just really frustrated with the way things worked ... and all the infighting that our setup leads to," Foulke said.

He said students and administrators alike have become "fed up" with USG, and he said the record number of votes he received shows students want something different from the organization. "We practically received a mandate from the student body to make a change," Foulke said.

He added that the commission is independent of USG so members with a potential "vested interest" such as re-election will not be involved in the process. Neither Foulke nor any other USG member will serve on the commission.

Foulke said he has solicited membership nominations for the commission, which will have about 22 members. He appointed the commission's co-chairs, former Academic Assembly member Jeff Corbets (senior-aerospace engineering) and former University Faculty Senate chair Christopher Bise, who will serve as a faculty adviser for the committee.

The co-chairs will be responsible for choosing other members.

Foulke said half of the commission's members will be students and the other half faculty, "with the students doing the real work and the faculty being there to advise and give a historical perspective."

He said he wrote to deans of various academic colleges and leaders of various student governance organizations looking for student members who would represent both academic and student life perspectives.

Finding commission chairs and working out details for the commission was a time-consuming task, Foulke said. He added that rushing the process "would just be foolish."

"It's just too important of an issue to move quickly on," Foulke said. "Things like this can be very sensitive."

Bise said he hoped the commission's ultimate recommendation would move USG forward. "We're trying to help students see their way through it," he said. "I want the students to come up with something that is meaningful and forward-thinking."

Corbets said in an e-mail message that membership would be determined this month. "Then we'll be meeting as soon and as much as possible to get the process rolling," he said.

Corbets said he could not set a firm deadline for the project until members met and determined what goals they had for USG.

Foulke said many of USG's current problems exist because the USG constitution is modeled after the U.S. Constitution.

"We shouldn't be a bureaucracy," he said. "We advocate for student need, and our structure slows us down."

Corbets said it is too early to determine if the committee will revise the current constitution or start from scratch.