The University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) transition group is considering modifying portions of the UPUA constitution. However, the student body will not have a chance to approve the changes.
UPUA became the student voice officially recognized by the university administration after a student referendum in the spring.
Andrew Reeve, chair of the transition group, said the group's "constitutional review" committee has been reviewing the entire UPUA constitution since this summer. He said any changes will have to be approved by a two-thirds majority of the entire transition group.
Reeve cited "efficiency" as the main reason the full student body would not be given a chance to approve the changes to the constitution, adding that the transition group has broad representation from the student body.
Last spring, about 60 percent of about 4,000 students voted to support UPUA. Students were encouraged to compare UPUA's proposed constitution to that of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG).
USG President Nick Stathes said he thought the student body should be able to vote on the changes to the constitution.
"That's the only way this process can be democratic like [UPUA members] believe it is," he said. "If they didn't have the final constitution ready, they shouldn't have hastily rushed to have the referendum."
Reeve said the primary reason for the constitutional review was to ensure the constitution was compliant with Student Affairs constitution regulations. He said the spirit of the constitution is still the same.
"The university has certain requirements for every student organization to meet," he said.
Although the proposed changes to the constitution are still pending approval, Reeve said two areas under review are the way some representatives are elected and the way the constitution is amended.
According to the original UPUA constitution, it would have 34 elected representatives, including a president and vice president. According to a UPUA press release, the elections commission is only seeking applications for 28 applicants.
Reeve said the UPUA elections commission was "banking" on a change that would convert the representative positions for the University Park Allocations Committee and the greek councils from being directly elected by students to being appointed by the boards of the respective councils.
Reeve said this would simplify election procedures because it would be very difficult to restrict voting for certain positions to just members of fraternities and sororities.
The way the UPUA constitution can be amended in the future is also under consideration.
According to the original constitution, a representative from Student Affairs would have a vote on whether amendments to the constitution were approved.
However, USG President Nick Stathes said he received an e-mail message from Penn State President Graham Spanier saying that Vice President for Student Affairs Vicky Triponey had requested to be removed from the amendment process.
Galen Foulke, the former USG president who organized the commission that wrote the UPUA constitution, wrote in an e-mail that he "never specifically requested" that it comply with Student Affairs guidelines.
"When I presented the results of the referenda to Dr. Spanier, and after he agreed to recognize the UPUA, I was informed by his staff that the document would need to be updated to conform to student engagement [guidelines]," he wrote. "Therefore, that's what's being done, and it is for reasons such as this that we created the transition group."
Reeve said he was optimistic that the final version of the constitution would be approved this weekend, but the final deadline for approval is the Oct. 11 election.
